Elsa and the Wolf
by 23rdHunter
Summary: Feared and desperately lonely, a young Princess Elsa stumbles across her salvation, a youngling who is both girl and wolf. Together Elsa and Anna navigate castle life as Elsa works her way toward knighthood to become a warrior queen. Darkish. May eventually be Elsanna.
1. Chapter 1

In which Elsa is an only child, a future warrior queen, and Anna a werewolf. Of sorts. Darkish.

On the day Elsa was born, she put a frost on her silver baby rattle so thick it looked like a snowball wrapped around her fist.

On her first birthday, the Princess skated on shaky infant legs across the frozen nursery floor into her mother's arms.

Her fifth year marked the beginning of her lessons. Her father, King Agdar, hired a score of tutors to teach her math, reading, strategy, diplomacy, history, dance, fencing, and everything else necessary to rule a kingdom.

In her sixth year, King Agdar added special lessons on wielding her powers, after her diplomacy tutor stabbed himself through the foot on one of her icicles. Her mother, a gentle soul, wanted Elsa to use her powers creatively for ladylike endeavors, but the King saw her powers as a tool and weapon to leverage against foes. Her parents divided over the disagreement, the Queen moving to a separate wing of the castle where Elsa saw her but rarely.

Elsa's eighth birthday had her joining the pages in the knight's hall, to learn the ways of war from the ground up. For a full month, fear of her royal status kept the other pages' tongues tied, and she learned in peace. When they began tormenting her, tripping her when she brought food to the knights' table so she spilled it and earned a cuff to the ear, ganging up on her in empty hallways, leaving bruises always hidden under her uniform, Elsa was frightened.

She went to her mother, who was horrified. The Queen told Elsa to give up her father's foolish dream of being a warrior queen, to instead apply herself to the more feminine pursuits of poetry and dance, embroidery and art. Elsa could leave the violence to men, she said. The queen said she could marry a warrior, thus removing the need to become one herself.

But Elsa could not deny her duty, nor her desire to be a queen mighty for her own sake, not mighty based on the strength of another. So she went to her father. The King told Elsa to fight back. To fight back openly when her opponents jabbed from shadows, to bring the beatings from deserted hallways to open courtyards where others would see her attackers' cowardice. To use her powers against her foes, so they would fear and respect her.

Elsa obeyed.

On her ninth birthday, she sat at the royal table with her parents, dressed for once as a princess rather than a page, a special treat for her birthday celebration. From there she watched the other pages flutter about the hall, dispersing food and drink. Not a one disturbed her, nor looked her in the eye, nor spoke to her. She turned to her mother, only to see the same look of fear on her face as on theirs.

Consumed by grief and loneliness, Elsa fled into the forests surrounding the castle. She ran until the sun set and her legs gave way beneath her, and slept huddled against a damp, moss-covered old oak.

The morning light found her scratched and bruised, lost and without food. She followed the sound of water to a stream, and bent down to drink.

The light scrabble of nail against stone was the Princess' only warning as instinct and training took over. She jumped back and sent out a shot of air so cold it would freeze anything in its path. The frozen body of her victim hit the ground she'd stood on not even a second prior with a dull thump. Lying there was a wolf.

Its body lay draped across four feet of ground, its height taking up another two and a half feet. The wolf's fur was gray, matted and thick. Fur covered the wolf's entire body, except for the swollen teats visible on its belly, silver-tipped with ice from Elsa's blast. The wolf was a mother.

Elsa felt a moment's guilt for killing the wolf, before she remembered that it had struck first. The Princess moved back to the stream and drank her fill, then crossed to where the wolf had come from. There, beyond the rim of the stream, was its den.

The den had formed when a great wind had toppled a giant pine, its roots pulled from the earth, leaving behind a half-covered gaping hole in the ground adorned with twisting rootlets. Elsa listened for danger as she stepped closer, hands at the ready, but heard nothing threatening.

Inside the den she found the she-wolf's cubs, thirteen furry blobs, most of them black and gray, sleeping in a writhing mass against the dead root system of the pine. The pups looked to be only a few weeks old, a month at most. They were helpless, would die unless the rest of the pack found and chose to care for them. Assuming there was more to their pack than just the pups and the she-wolf.

One of the cubs woke, and squirmed its way out from underneath its siblings. Elsa picked it up. This one's red fur still lay flat against its body in the sleek look of wolfish infancy. It was the runt of the litter. The cub blinked deep blue eyes slowly at her, whined and yawned, its pink tongue curling in its tiny mouth. The pup rooted against Elsa's hand in hopes of finding milk. She stepped out of the den to get a better look at the cub. As she did, a sunbeam fell onto the pup's eyes. It sneezed.

Where once Elsa had been holding a red-furred wolf cub, she now held a naked, red-haired girl-child. She dropped it. Startled and hurt, the child took in a deep breath and wailed. Elsa gaped.

The girl had stick-thin limbs and a bulging belly that spoke of parasites and poor nutrition. She was tiny, no larger than most two-year-olds, but probably much older than her size indicated given her starved appearance. Her skin was freckled and deeply tan, with callouses on her feet and knees. Her eyes were the same deep blue they'd been as a wolf cub.

Elsa crouched down to pat the girl hesitantly on the back.

"There, there, I'm sorry for dropping you. It's okay, I won't hurt you anymore."

The Princess removed her cloak and wrapped it around the girl, who had stopped crying and was now sitting with her legs splayed, body crouched forward toward Elsa, cheeks puffed out and eyes narrowed as the stared at the Princess.

Suddenly she perked up, a huge smile brightening her face as she leapt at Elsa, hands and legs wrapping around her neck and waist.

"Rrrrr." The girl growled. She bit the collar of Elsa's dress and tugged, like a puppy play fighting with its pack-mate. Elsa pulled her off and sat her back on the ground. Before she could scold the girl, she sneezed again, and Elsa was once more faced with a red-furred wolf cub, this time wrapped in a short purple cloak.

The pup went right back to tearing joyfully at Elsa's dress, though she had much less success, her puppy milk teeth reaching just barely to Elsa's mid-shin. She switched to the Princess' ankle.

"Ouch!"

She picked the up the cub, cloak and all, and very gently swatted its nose with her finger.

"No."

As she stood there holding the wolf-child, the small hairs at the back of her neck tingled. The rest of the pups had woken up and were mewling for their mother, who would never come. Howling sounded in the not-so-distant distance. The rest of the pack was coming to the rescue.

For the second time in as many days, Elsa fled.

The Princess ran, the cub held securely in both arms, still wrapped in the cloak. She would never be able to outrun the wolves; they could run as fast as she could, but ceaselessly, where she would be exhausted within the hour. Elsa shifted the cub to her right arm. With her left she froze the stream, conjuring skates for her feet as she transitioned from running parallel to the stream to skating upon it, racing down the ice away from the wolves.

Gradually the trees thinned out, and when Elsa saw the tallest spire of the castle come into view, she felt relief sweep through her. She slowed, then stopped as they neared the castle walls. With a wave of her hand she vanished the skates on her feet and walked toward the front gate.

The guards let her enter without question; no one had yet noticed her absence.

In the safety of her chambers, Elsa gently set her bundled guest on her bed. The pup had thankfully stayed a wolf throughout their journey, and now lay curled, nose to tail, in the center of Elsa's bed.

She watched as over the course of several hours the wolf turned again into a girl, never waking, later returning to wolf form. The Princess could determine no reason for why the girl turned; the shifts seemed to be random.

The hour grew late, and Elsa's stomach groaned with hunger. She exercised her royal privileges to request food for herself to be brought to her room, along with some milk and oatmeal. When the servant brought in their meals, Elsa stopped him from leaving immediately.

"How do you go about deworming someone?"

The servant, a blond-haired boy no older than she, thought a moment and replied, "Well, they have these pills you can take, or sometimes there's a powder you sprinkle on their food. That's what I use for Sven, my reindeer."

She asked him to bring her some, and gave him a coin from her quarterly allowance for his trouble.

Elsa sprinkled the powder on the oatmeal, stirring a fair amount of milk in as well, and set it on her nightstand. She reached out and woke the pup, who promptly turned into a girl.

"You know," she said as the girl snapped her teeth awkwardly around a spoonful of milky oatmeal, "If you're going to stay here with me you really ought to have a name." Elsa refilled the spoon and offered it back to the girl, who accepted it more carefully. This continued until the girl figured out how to grasp the spoon herself and eat with it.

"I'll call you Anna. It means favor, or grace. You will be my favored one, the favorite of the heir apparent."

She would go to her father in the morning, request permission to hire a girl to take care of her new wolf hybrid. That should quell questions about Anna as either person or canine.

"My tutors can teach you as well, what's mine shall be yours, Anna, if you stay with me."

Anna had her face in the oatmeal bowl. After she licked it clean the girl yawned and sprawled herself across the whole of Elsa's bed before curling up around Elsa's seated form. A few minutes later, she was a wolf cub tucked into Elsa's side.

Elsa took that for a maybe.


	2. Anna Speaks

Chapter Two: Anna Speaks

* * *

The morning light shone through the windows of Elsa's chambers as dawn arrived. The Princess woke when the first beam hit her face. She rolled out of bed, dropping into a light crouch to begin her morning exercises. After stretching and some strengthening exercises for her woefully unmuscular body, Elsa washed at the porcelain bowl in her bathing room. Next, she pulled on the yellow leggings and long-sleeved shirt that, with the purple and green tunic bearing the Arendelle crocus, made up her Page uniform. She tied up her boots and put her hair into a braided bun to keep it neat regardless of her activities.

Prepared to face the day, Elsa stepped back into her main chamber. Anna was awake. The girl could walk on two legs, she noted with some relief. Anna kept a very low center of balance, knees bent and back hunched as she walked curiously around the room. When she reached the corner and circled, crouching lower, Elsa realized what was about to occur, as it occurred.

"Anna, no!"

The girl stopped urinating as Elsa swept her up and ran her to the privy. While Anna finished on the privy, Elsa changed her plans from the night before. She'd originally intended to go to her father about Anna, but now considered that too risky. Her father was the only person who could potentially refuse Elsa, and have Anna sent away, or worse. While he was unlikely to do so unless he thought Anna a threat to Elsa's future, she would not take even that much risk with the girl. Instead, she would go to her mother, the Queen.

Elsa took Anna from the privy to the bathing room, and set about scrubbing her clean. Anna shrieked at being put in water, and tried to scrabble out of the bowl. The ensuing battle ended only when Elsa exasperatedly threw a blast of frozen air up and hit several soap bubbles, one of which landed on Anna's nose. She laughed, clapped, and finally stopped fighting the bath. A steady stream of frozen bubbles entertained her throughout the rest of the bath, having her hair braided, and being dressed in one of Elsa's cotton sleeping shifts.

Elsa changed into a dry uniform and returned to find Anna chewing on the empty food bowls from the night before. She set Anna on the bed and knelt on the ground before her so they were eye to eye.

"Anna, I'm going to speak to Mother about you and then bring back breakfast. You must stay here while I'm gone. If you wander about as a girl, they will kick you out of the castle. If you wander as a wolf, they will kill you. You must stay here, Anna, do you understand?"

Anna bit her nose and giggled.

"No! No biting, Anna." Elsa rubbed her now sore nose and sighed.

"I'll be back soon." She opened and closed the door carefully so Anna couldn't slip out with her, and strode down the corridor in the direction that would eventually take her to where her mother's chambers were.

* * *

Elsa had not been in her mother's chambers for nearly a year, not since the day she'd gone to the Queen for advice about her fellow pages' bullying. The next time she'd seen her mother, Elsa had been spattered with the blood of Emil, a stocky noble's son who'd knocked her into the wall with his shoulder. She'd shattered his nose with a ball of ice. The Queen had seen Elsa and Emil, rushed to assure herself that her daughter was unharmed, and when she realized how Elsa had become covered in blood, had left quickly. Between that day and her birthday celebration Elsa had seen only brief glimpses of her mother.

A maid let Elsa into the outer chamber, and left her there as she alerted the Queen to her presence. The Queen, dressed in a plain but well-made gown for a morning in the gardens, entered.

"Your highness," Elsa did not flinch at the cool address, but the words stung nonetheless.

"Mother," She stood straight, feet apart, hands clasped behind her, as though she were only reciting a message she'd been given in the messenger hall, where the pages ran errands for knights and nobles alike. Likewise, her mother remained distant, hands folded before her, regarding Elsa with polite caution.

"I've come to inform you that I've taken on a girl, and to request additional coin be added to my next quarter's allowance, to pay her wage." Elsa knew the request was reasonable, if a bit vain. A number of the other pages had personal servants attend them, mostly those from the richest families, but also the most spoiled among them. She'd considered a personal servant too intrusive; Elsa preferred privacy in her chambers, preferred to know there were no eyes filled with fear watching her. At least, she'd preferred that until yesterday.

"I see. Have you chosen her from the castle staff, or will you also need coin to outfit her appropriately for royal service?" Elsa hadn't considered what special attire a personal servant to the Princess might need, she barely noticed the other pages' servants, much less what they wore.

"Ah, she will need outfitting, though I would prefer to speak with the tailor myself regarding her clothes." Whatever Anna wore needed to survive her transformations from human to wolf.

Reminded of Anna's unique physical properties, Elsa started to bring up the 'wolf-hybrid' she'd obtained, but was interrupted by a shout from behind her.

"Hey, you can't go in there! Get back here!" The maid chased something into the room, and Elsa felt the now-familiar pain of half-moon shaped bites, this time on her knee, as Anna pounced on her. The maid reached to grab the errant child, but Elsa picked the girl up and wrapped her arms around Anna protectively.

"It's fine. She's with me, you may return to your duties." Elsa snapped at the maid, who trembled. It was an odd sight, for the maid was a large woman who must have been nearly twice Elsa's height, but clearly she'd heard the rumors about Elsa's powers, and feared for her safety. She glanced at the Queen, who nodded, and fled the room. Elsa turned her attention to the redhead currently nuzzling her shoulder.

"What have I said about biting?" Anna looked properly scolded, so Elsa didn't bother to yell at her for wandering the castle. "How did you manage to find me all the way over here?" Anna tilted her head, but didn't answer. Elsa wondered if she could speak. The Princess smiled at Anna and set her down. "It doesn't matter. Now that you're here we can get breakfast, then we need to see the tailor."

"Elsa?" The smile dropped from her face. She'd forgotten about her mother, who was looking back and forth between Anna and Elsa, brows furrowed. Still, she'd called Elsa by name. Steeling herself, she replied.

"Yes, mother?" The Queen stepped forward.

"This is the girl you hired? She doesn't look old enough to be of much help yet." Elsa bristled.

"Anna is a great help to me, her value is not open to question." A hand touched Elsa's shoulder.

The Queen stood before her, looking down at Elsa with a searching gaze. Elsa reached out for Anna's hand, and gripped it tightly. The Queen smiled.

"No, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say she wasn't useful, only that she looks very young. How old is she?" The Queen knelt and opened her arms to Anna, who to Elsa's surprise did not immediately leap upon her. Instead, Anna looked up at Elsa and backed into her side, watching the Queen with narrowed eyes. Elsa felt a surge of warmth at Anna's trust in her, but didn't want Anna to be afraid of her mother. She released Anna's hand and nodded encouragingly. Anna stepped toward the Queen, who waited patiently.

"I don't know, exactly. She's a bit- unusual. I was considering taking her to a doctor to find out."

Anna went to the Queen, who hugged her lightly, then released her, stood, and gestured widely around the room, inviting Anna to explore. Anna ran back to Elsa and, copying the Princess' earlier action, grabbed her hand. She then dragged Elsa after her as she went from wall to wall, touching and looking at all the objects and paintings scattered about.

Elsa laughed at Anna's exuberance, and was secretly delighted by various indications of Anna's development: the way she picked up cues both verbal and nonverbal, how she recognized both Elsa and the Queen in a painting of the royal family, the way she tried to mimic a painting of a woman swinging. The Queen also seemed to enjoy Anna's antics; she watched them with a far off look in her eye, a faint smile on her face.

Anna reached out and picked up the last item on a table at the back of the room. A statue depicting Romulus and Remus, founders of the ancient city of Rome, as infants suckling at the teats of a she-wolf. Elsa felt a moment of discomfiture as Anna stared at the statue, which turned to horror when tears welled up in Anna's eyes and she flopped to the ground, turning into a wolf herself on the way down. Anna howled, though rather than sounding mournful, her tiny lungs forced a long, high-pitched squeak from her throat.

Elsa snatched Anna up into her arms and turned to her mother with wide eyes. The Queen hadn't moved, appeared to be blinking rapidly, unsure what had just happened.

"Mother, please, I can explain, everything is fine, just…" Elsa trailed off, unsure what to say. Mother and daughter watched each other, unmoving, the only sound a muffled squealing that gradually quieted to a series of soft yips. Elsa stroked her wolf cub's head and ears distractedly, eyes never leaving her mother.

Finally the Queen moved. The woman stepped up to them and gently lifted Anna from Elsa's unprotesting arms. Fear filled Elsa and for the first time in years, frost began to edge its way across the floor without her commanding it. The Queen saw Elsa's fear and reached out a hand to cup her daughter's face, cradling Anna in her other arm.

"Hush, Elsa, it's alright. Now, why don't we sit down, and you can tell me what's really going on." Tears filled Elsa's eyes, and with a sob, she crushed her mother to her in their first hug in over a year.

The Queen called her anxious maid in and ordered breakfast for three, and shuffled Elsa into her sitting room. She listened to Elsa explain the whole story, nodding occasionally, but not speaking. When Elsa finished she sat quietly for a moment.

"This is what I was afraid would happen. Your powers are so strong, Elsa, and already they have changed you. My sweet little girl would never have used lethal force without knowing whom she used it against. However, without your powers that wolf would have killed you."

As she spoke, the Queen held Anna, still a red-furred wolf cub, in her lap, feeding her tiny pieces of hard-boiled egg.

"I'm so sorry, Elsa, for how I treated you after that day. It felt like I'd lost you, lost my daughter and had a golem put in her stead. I mourned you, when you were still there, needing me. You need me now, you and this little marvel here." The Queen looked down at Anna, then up at Elsa. "I promise, Elsa, that I will not abandon you again."

Overwhelmed, the Princess could only gulp back still more tears and nod while smiling tremulously. She turned back to her breakfast of boiled eggs and fruit and ate steadily, using the food as an excuse to retreat from the emotional intensity of the moment. She felt a change in the air and looked over to find Anna a girl again. Anna crawled from the Queen's lap to Elsa's side and stuck her face in the crook of Elsa elbow, facing Elsa's plate, her expression reminiscent of a dog begging for food. All that remained on the Princess' plate was a hunk of white bread smeared with butter.

She looked at her mother. "Would giving Anna that hurt her?"

The Queen pursed her lips. "I think she'll be alright. I wouldn't let her have it as a cub, but as a girl she should be fine."

Elsa nodded and Anna snatched up the bread with both hands, biting into it with such force that butter made it all the way up to her eyebrows and down to her chin. When the bread was gone Anna set herself to wiping butter from her face with her fingers and licking them.

"Ugh, Anna!" Elsa took a napkin and fondly cleaned off Anna's face. When she looked up, the Queen was standing.

"We've a lot to get done today Elsa, best get a move on. I know your lessons and duties were cancelled in the aftermath of the celebration, but they won't be tomorrow. I'm going to take Anna to the tailor so he can fit her with some suitable clothes. You take this," She handed Elsa a slip of paper, "To Andreas at the Treasury. Take the coins he gives you and meet us there."

The rest of the day passed in a blur. That night, lying in bed with Anna curled up beside her, though the girl now had a perfectly serviceable bed of her own under the window, one moment stood out.

* * *

She'd tried to run straight from the Treasury to the tailor, but several nobles, seeing her Page uniform, had given her errands. Running messages and delivering packages had taken up her afternoon, and when she finally made it to the tailor's shop she worried that Anna and her mother would be gone.

They weren't. Elsa walked in and heard her mother.

"So there Elsa was, three years old and already skating better than most girls her age could walk, trying to get the pig to dance with her. She froze the duck pond and magicked skates onto the pig's feet, and thought that would be enough. She still has a scar on her hand where he bit her. I'm only glad he didn't take off a whole finger."

The Princess followed the Queen's voice into one of the fitting rooms. There Anna stood, on a podium in the center of the room, dressed in the solemn green skirt and jacket of the castle staff, arms out to her sides while the master seamstress made some final adjustments. She'd been listening to the Queen's stories, and hadn't seen Elsa come in. Elsa's mother stopped talking, and Anna turned to see why.

"Elsa! Elsa!" Anna abandoned the podium and the master seamstress, who made a good-natured grunt of disapproval, and flew into Elsa, calling her name the whole time. "Do the magic, Elsa! Do the magic!"

Stunned, Elsa turned to her mother. "How…?"

"It seems she had the ability to speak the entire time, Anna simply lacked the vocabulary. She started talking shortly after I started telling stories about you. With tutoring I expect she'll be on par with her age group, whatever that may be, within three months."

For the time being Anna's vocabulary was limited to "Elsa, do the magic!" Still, the Princess obliged.

She backed away from Anna and, rubbing her fingers together, conjured an icy snowflake that would cover the room in snow once thrown into the air.

"Not in my fitting room! Outside, your highness, if you please!"

Elsa had sheepishly obeyed. She, Anna, and the Queen had spent the early evening hours in the garden building snowmen and throwing snowballs.

* * *

Back in the present, Elsa turned on her side in the bed. She marveled at the small, freckled, redheaded wolf-child who had stolen her heart. At Anna, whose mother Elsa had killed, and who had returned Elsa's mother to her.


	3. A Day in the Life

Chapter Three: A Day in the Life

* * *

Anna woke as soon as the sky started to change colors, rolling off Elsa's bed and hopping onto her own for a better look out the window. Sunrise was still some time away, so she decided to fetch breakfast before Elsa woke. She put on a green shirt, over which she pulled a lighter green vest, which tucked into the heavy wool skirt. Anna forewent her stockings and shoes, they restricted her movement too much and were itchy.

Dressed well enough to leave the suite, Anna crept over to the door and slipped into the corridor. The kitchen already bustled with activity as bakers worked their ovens preparing the day's bread and servants gathered the foodstuffs for the first breakfasters. Everything looked delicious, Anna was slightly overwhelmed, so she decided to just start at one corner and work her way through the kitchen, taking a little of everything.

Gerda caught her right away as she tried to pour fresh milk into a pair of beer steins.

"Anna! Breakfast is served in the hall, or if you wish to bring something back to Elsa, is prepared by one of the kitchen staff when you ask for help. Breakfast is not prepared by young girls who have no business being in the kitchens yet. Am I clear?"

Gerda, an older woman of average height who always seemed taller and scarier than any woman who wasn't royalty should be, was Elsa's former nursemaid, Anna's current tutor in castle affairs, and matron to the entire castle. The matron firmly lifted the milk jug from the girl's hands and set it up on the table, and put the beer steins away.

"Yes ma'am." Anna looked down and shuffled her feet. Gerda tapped one of the kitchen staff, a young woman whose arms held a huge basket of buns still steaming from the oven.

"After you set those on the far table, put together a tray for two and send it out with Anna here, who will be waiting on this bench for you." The woman nodded and left. Gerda sat Anna on the bench and moved off, parting with a look and finger shake that meant _don't move_.

Anna kicked idly at the air until the woman returned with a laden tray.

"Thanks miss, this is great!" Anna hopped off the bench and grabbed the tray from the woman, who smiled and winked at Anna before returning to work.

She made it back to Elsa's rooms just moments after the first rays of sunlight streamed through the windows.

* * *

The Princess rose with the sun and rolled out of bed. She sleepily began her morning exercises, which halted abruptly when she noticed Anna hadn't joined her. She whirled around, but detected no other life forms, human or lupine, in the room.

"Anna?" No answer. "Anna!" The doorknob jiggled, the door opened and a shadowy figure backed into the room, bearing something wide and flat.

There stood Anna, beaming and carrying a tray filled with breakfast.

"Elsa! I woke up before you today, the sky wakes up before sunrise you know. I got breakfast! Gerda only yelled at me once. Let's eat!"

Elsa tensed and took a deep breath. Her inclination was to scold Anna for scaring her, for leaving the suite without permission and apparently getting into trouble with Gerda, so she held her breath until the desire to yell passed. She took the tray from Anna and slid it onto the table they ate and did their studies at.

"Thank you for getting breakfast, Anna. We'll eat after I've finished my exercises."

Anna joined her on the floor as she stretched, copying her movements. She did much better with those than with the strength-building section, which Elsa moved to next. After her final set of push-ups Elsa stood with her feet shoulder-width apart, back straight and head down, hands cupped before her. The Princess focused on keeping her eyes open as she conjured a small, glowing ball of frost. She willed the ball to grow and shrink, each size change increasing the strain on her powers. Once she willed the ball as large as her horse and as small as a grain of rice she vanished it, muscles trembling.

Conjuring snow, ice, frost or frozen air was easy, Elsa sometimes did it without thought. Controlling, and especially shrinking or dissipating, her wintery creations was much harder. This task of measuredly growing and shrinking an object she'd created was to her powers what her strength-building exercises were to her body. It quieted her powers for a day, made them less likely to act up, and also made them stronger. The Princess found that any day she didn't consciously work with her powers was one where they were wont to act up against her will, much like a day without exercise left her wont to fidget in her lessons.

Anna handed Elsa a damp cloth from the bathing room, which she gratefully accepted to wipe the sweat from her face and arms.

They ate together, Elsa listening as Anna energetically told the Princess about her adventure in the kitchens that morning. Elsa silently took in her boisterous companion.

Six months had done a lot to change the girl. Pabbie, the royal doctor, estimated Anna's age at somewhere between four and six, leaning more toward six based on cognitive and physical ability. After hearing about how Anna had been found, he guessed that her malnutrition was a recent development brought on by competition between the growing cubs, and should have no lasting impact on future growth. Indeed, a steady diet of plentiful and nutritious food, along with some supplementary vitamins and medications, had prompted a growth spurt that left Anna nearly three inches taller and a dozen pounds heavier.

Breakfast finished, the girls bathed separately, Elsa first, Anna following as Elsa dressed. When Anna finished she tried to help the Princess, gamely attempting to lift the heavy quilted tunic Elsa wore to her outdoor lessons. Once Elsa was fully equipped in her leggings, shirt, tunic, boots and belt, which held a pouch and her knife, she turned to Anna.

"Did you want to come with me today?" When Anna nodded vigorously Elsa took a small but thick leather collar from its place with the rest of Anna's clothes. Anna blinked and was a wolf cub, gazing steadily at Elsa as she fit the collar around her wolf's neck.

As a wolf Anna's body had also grown, now resembling a cub of around eight weeks, her fur beginning to take on the fluffy, double-coated character of an adult wolf, but still lacking the coarse guard hairs of a grown wolf, leaving her covered in a dense coat of the fluffiest fur Elsa had ever seen. Anna wasn't completely red, but rather mostly red with the fur along her spine tipped with black, her belly silvery white.

In the month following her arrival Anna had been largely confined to Elsa's quarters, for fear that a sudden transformation might prompt a mob lynching; the people of Arendelle feared those with powers for good reason, and would not hesitate to stomp out a young monster before it grew into a dangerous one. Neither Elsa nor the Queen could determine what caused Anna to transform, until one day Elsa thought to ask her.

"I just do."

"Why?"

"Because I want to, or I get…" Anna's vocabulary had improved enormously, but still impeded her ability to communicate somewhat. Frustrated, she started over.

"I want to, or you drop me, or there's a loud noise. Mostly I want to."

Armed with the knowledge that Anna could control her physical form unless startled, Elsa set about working with her to shift intentionally. The collar served two purposes. Its foremost purpose was to prevent Anna from shifting when startled. Careful experimentation revealed that her form would not change if something kept a part of her body from shifting normally. This was helpful for keeping her lupine form, less so in preventing Anna from sprouting fur at a moment's notice.

The collar's second purpose was to mark Anna as Elsa's, a warning that tampering with the wolf would bring swift punishment.

Thus marked, Anna could roam the castle freely. To avoid the confusion of having a pet and a personal servant both named Anna, the pup roamed as Freki, the Princess' wolf hybrid puppy. She bounded around the castle at Elsa's heels, tripping servants, gnawing table legs, knocking over pottery, eager to lick and play with any passersby. It took only a week for Freki, a noble name from Norse mythology, borne by one of Odin's faithful pet wolves, to become Feistypants.

Together Elsa and Anna left for the stables. There, since the Princess did not yet have a horse of her own, Elsa worked with Kristoff, a stablehand who aspired to one day become a stable master, or a veterinarian, or perhaps an iceman, but in the meantime served by helping pages learn to care for and ride their mounts. While Elsa mucked out stalls and polished riding tack Anna played with Sven, Kristoff's reindeer calf.

After completing her time in the stables Elsa moved outside the castle to the training fields, Anna by her side for most of the walk, but in her arms for the last leg. The training fields were where archery, jousting, swordsmanship and most other knightly endeavors occurred. Here Elsa practiced archery and earned a bruised wrist for forgetting her arm guard, while Anna practiced fetching Elsa's spent arrows without leaving tooth marks. She was moderately successful.

By lunchtime the pair was exhausted. Elsa carried her wolf to the main hall, where rows of tables and benches were set up, each table bearing bread, meat, cheese, fruit, and pitchers of beer and juice. Too tired to bother with fixing a tray Elsa sat with the other pages at the far end of the hall. Anna sat in Elsa's lap as they ate, devouring whatever morsels the Princess handed her. The other pages mostly ignored her, though a few, like Emil whose nose still sat crookedly from her ice ball, watched her from the corner of their eye. When Anna finished before Elsa she tumbled from her lap to the ground and began wandering under the table.

"Hey there Feistypants!" Leif, a portly brown-headed page a year younger than Elsa, stooped down and pet Anna fondly.

"Look at you hanging out in the main hall, soon you'll be one of the guys huh? Gonna start carrying messages and running errands like the rest of us?"

Elsa tried to ignore him as she ate. Cultivating friendships was something Elsa had no skill at, though she recognized its importance. Anna, however, endeared herself to whomever she met. Elsa knew the boy would soon pick "Feistypants" up and return the pup to Elsa. The Princess would thank Leif and try to engender feelings of friendship in the boy. Perhaps offer to help him with his ghastly quarterstaff form; that morning after archery she'd watched him keep his hands spread too far apart on the staff, a fact his opponent took advantage of, as Leif's black and purple fingers attested.

A squeal interrupted Elsa's plans.

"Leave her alone!"

Elsa looked over to see Leif punch Emil ineffectually in the stomach, receiving a vicious kick to the groin for his trouble. She stood and sought out Anna. The wolf cub lay on the ground next to a table leg, she didn't look injured but with her fur it was hard to tell, and she wasn't moving.

Everyone in the hall shivered as the temperature dipped below freezing and frost curled its way up the walls. Emil saw Elsa stand and turned to run. Elsa conjured a ball of frost between her hands and drew them wide, stretching the ball into a sheet of clear, malleable ice. She thrust the sheet at Emil, pinning him against the wall.

The Princess didn't bother to go around the table, instead jumping over it, one hand resting at the table's center for balance. She called out to the white-faced Leif, who was curled around himself. "What happened?" Leif tried to respond, but was having difficulty speaking, so another page whose name Elsa didn't know spoke up.

"Leif was petting Feistypants when Emil just walked up and kicked her! He tried to kick her again but Leif punched him."

"Take Leif to the healers, if no one there has time to help him ask for Pabbie, tell him I sent you. Have his bill sent to me as well." Elsa snapped. The Page nodded and helped a crying Leif to his feet.

Elsa knelt beside Anna.

"Anna, are you alright?" The wolf cub licked Elsa's hand and sat up, but kept her front right paw from touching the ground. When Elsa moved to touch it Anna flinched. Fury burned through the Princess. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" Anna tilted her head and whined. Elsa tenderly lifted the pup into her arms, then stood and turned to face the rest of the hall, which had mostly gone silent to watch the commotion.

"How many among you witnessed Emil, son of the Duke of Weselton, assault Freki, and then, when confronted for his dishonorable behavior by Leif of Berk, assault him as well?" She heard most of the pages, several of the servants and even a few of the knights in the hall respond.

"Then you all may witness as I exact retribution from him." Elsa set Anna on the table and walked to Emil, letting her arms fall to her sides as she went. When she lifted them up again icicles shot up like stalagmites on either side of her. Elsa's hands jerked back and up, the icicles breaking from the ground to follow her hands' motions, now floating over the Princess' head, pointing down at the noble's son, still trapped behind the sheet of ice. Her left hand dropped and its corresponding icicle shot into Emil's right arm, piercing through flesh, muscle and bone to embed itself in the stone behind him. His scream didn't register to Elsa as she adjusted the icicle controlled by her right hand.

"You injured my wolf's paw, so I took your arm. You injured Leif's manhood, should I…?" Her arm lowered slightly and the icicle crept lower, now hovering just below Emil's waist, where a growing dark patch stained the front of his tunic. His screams filled the air, but Elsa still heard Anna whimper. She glanced back to see her favored one curled up on the table, shaking.

She'd ignored Anna's pain in favor of exacting vengeance. Shame filled the Princess. She pulled her hands together, crushing the icicle into a ball, and shoved it at Emil, turning away at the same time to face Anna. The ice vanished as she Elsa gathered the wolf into her arms and started walking out. She paused at the exit and spoke to the quivering, bleeding form huddled on the ground there. "Go home, Emil. You lost your shot at knighthood over a petty grievance with your future Queen. If I see you near my wolf again, I'll kill you."

With that Elsa left to find Pabbie, leaving behind a broken boy and a hall filled with awestruck inhabitants of castle Arendelle.

* * *

AN: Just a heads up, this is not a historically accurate depiction of any castle, anywhere. I'm picking and choosing freely from a number of different time periods and cultures, especially regarding how one obtains knighthood. There's also a healthy dose of the fantasy ideas of medieval life that don't really correlate with reality, for example most of the people in my story will be literate, and will not suffer from any serious illness.

Also, this story is unbeta'd, so I apologize for any errors. If one is really bugging you, please say something so I can fix it!

Thanks for reading!


	4. Meet the King

Chapter Four: Meet the King

* * *

When Elsa had taken Anna to Pabbie after her encounter with Emil, he'd been very concerned. The doctor examined the tiny wolf cub carefully, eventually looking up at the Princess.

"Her front right leg is broken, and her ribs are damaged, though I cannot tell if they are bruised or fractured. However, she is also going into shock, which means there is almost certainly internal bleeding."

He'd kept talking but Elsa hadn't heard him. Instead she'd looked down at her wolf, who was whining, panting heavily, and constantly struggling against Pabbie's gently prodding fingertips as she tried to keep eye contact with Elsa.

"Your highness, I cannot treat her." That caught the Princess' attention.

"What do you mean?"

"I am not an animal doctor, and as a wolf cub Anna is very small. I cannot set her leg, nor wrap her ribs, nor treat her shock. The medications I use for these sort of injuries cannot be properly administered to someone with such a small mass, they might kill her. She must turn back into a human."

The doctor moved away as Elsa stepped forward. She leaned over Anna and gently removed the leather collar, setting it aside.

"Hush, Anna, you're alright. You'll be alright, but you need to do something first. I need you to do something, for me, please?" Anna's eyes stayed on her own, her ears tilted toward the Princess as the wolf listened carefully even through her pain.

"Can you turn into a girl again? We- I need you to be a human right now so the doctor can treat you, can help you get better. Please?" Anna blinked and was a girl before Elsa finished speaking.

The change revealed mottled bruising that covered most of Anna's right side, from shoulder to hip. Someone pushed Elsa back, obscuring her view. Pabbie shouted out a series of orders in a clear, loud voice. Two assistants, one of whom had been the one to displace Elsa by Anna's side, moved forward. Elsa watched from the side of the room as they worked on Anna, setting bones and wrapping linen around her, making the girl drink odd-smelling things.

She had no idea what they were doing, and dared not interrupt them to ask. As the hour grew late their pace slowed. Anna slept fitfully and Pabbie announced that the worst was over. They used a stretcher to carry Anna back to Elsa's chambers, and put her to bed. It was the first time Anna's bed under the window had actually held a sleeping Anna, and the thought brought a tight smile to Elsa's face.

One of Pabbie's assistants remained, a healer in training named Cliff. He kept with him an array of medications and tools held in a locked box.

He told Elsa to get some sleep.

"How can I when Anna is in danger?" She'd asked angrily.

"She is in much less danger now. Tomorrow will be a bad day. Her damaged ribs make breathing difficult, so she needs strong pain medication to keep her breathing normally. Unfortunately the medicine we use to treat pain is hard on the body. Her stomach and head will hurt, and she'll be nauseous, but eating will ease some of the discomfort. We'll need to guard against dehydration, keep her fluids up, and there are a few other things we'll be doing to help her get well.

"But, your highness, the best thing you can do to help her right now is to be there for her. And for you to be there for her you need to take care of yourself. So sleep now, she won't be waking up anytime soon."

With that, Cliff settled himself in a chair by Anna's bed, a text on anatomy in his hand.

Elsa slept heavily, trapped in her nightmares.

_She was back in the main hall. Emil kicked Anna, and kicked her again, her tiny bones snapping audibly. Elsa shot an icicle at him and he vanished, the icicle instead plunging into Anna's heart._

_She was five years old, playing with her dolls. Gerda came in with a sad expression on her face, carrying a large box. "Your Father's ordered that your toys be taken away, Elsa. You've outgrown them." Her dolls turned into Anna, human and dressed in Elsa's sleeping shift. Gerda packed Anna into the box, twisting limbs about so they'd fit, ignoring Anna's cries for help. She left Elsa sitting on the floor of her room, alone._

_She was in her room, in her bed. She woke up and looked over to find Anna curled up next to her. Elsa smiled and reached out to brush a hair from Anna's face. Her fingers left behind rusty red smears. Yanking off the blankets Elsa found blood soaked the mattress, seeping from a wound in Anna's side. She checked the girl's pulse. Anna was cold. _

Elsa woke to a pounding on the door to her chambers. She'd been summoned to the King's office.

* * *

"You sent for me, Father?"

"Yes, Elsa, come in." King Agdar rose from his seated position behind the intricately carved wooden desk that dwarfed all other furniture in his office. He stepped around it and waved his daughter closer, pulling her into a strong embrace when she reached him, lifting her off the ground.

"Ah, my sweet Princess, how you've grown!" King Agdar set his daughter back on the ground and stepped back, keeping hold of Elsa's shoulders to turn her to the left and right. Releasing her, he swirls a hand, motioning for her to twirl around.

Knowing this was coming, Elsa had taken extra care in donning her uniform, aware that any scuffs or wrinkles would be noticed and punished. At the end of the turn Elsa halted with feet apart and hands behind her back. She glanced up to meet the King's approving gaze.

"The perfect Page. Excellent. Come, Elsa, sit here." They moved to a couch facing the window at the back wall of the room. The King sat first, Elsa sitting on the other end of the couch, turned to face him. Her father regarded a sheaf of papers stacked on a low table in front of the couch.

"I've had reports in from all your tutors and from the stables and practice courts. Your mathematics tutor in particular praises your meticulous and noteworthy work." Here the king reached out and patted Elsa on the shoulder. "Already inquiring about Geometry, it seems. I trust your standard math lessons are also proceeding apace?"

Elsa knew better than to answer just yet.

"Seventeen times thirty-two, Elsa."

"Five-hundred and… forty-four."

"Eleven times ninety-nine."

"One-thousand and eighty-nine."

"If I were to set the income tax on a man with an annual wage of ninety crowns to thirty percent, how much would he owe?"

"…I, ah… t-twenty-seven crowns?" Elsa father beamed.

"Very good! You've a real knack for this. I imagine once you are a knight you'll be keeping the Treasurer on his toes during council meetings." Her father already had a place on his council for Elsa, pending her attainment of knighthood. King Agdar looked back down at the papers, his smile faltering slightly. Elsa, who had started to relax, tensed.

"Now, about your archery. The Arms master tells me you've been distracted lately: forgetting your arm guard, taking a full hour to return arrows at the end of practice, sticking to the outer edges of the range instead of moving to more difficult targets in the center. Still doing well, but not progressing as you were last time we spoke. I'm sure this isn't anything to be concerned about, but for the next quarter I've told him to double the amount of time you spend in the fields, and to keep a closer eye on your progress." That meant Elsa would be spending the next three months on the fields from morning to mid-afternoon, with no breaks. She nodded.

For the next hour the King and Elsa went over her studies and progress on the training fields, her conduct while running errands, and a report by Gerda on Elsa's interactions with the castle staff. Other than her performance in archery Elsa's progress pleased her father, and no further changes were made to the Princess' schedule.

The last report finished, King Agdar finally turned to look as his daughter, setting the papers back on the table.

"Gerda informed me of the incident in the main hall yesterday. While I am beyond pleased with how your mastery of ice has progressed, the way you handled things was not well done."

King Agdar rose and faced the window.

"As a ruler you must always appear to be what you wish others to see you as. Ever you must be courageous, kind, just, compassionate, honest, and generous. They must see you as the best sort of person, Elsa." He paused, then continued.

"You were right to engage the crowd before punishing the Duke's son. Not a one among them in the crowds claims you acted wrongly, as it is your right as heir apparent to exact justice from those who abuse your person or effects."

Elsa doubted her father's words. Rather, she thought, none dared impugn the King's assessment of his daughter's character, nor did any dare to speak unkindly of her in the King's presence.

"Your error lay in in your next actions, Elsa. You held a crowd of nearly one-hundred subjects, many of whom current or future nobles, spellbound. They were in awe of your power, and instead of taking advantage of that to stir their loyalty, to cement their faith in the future Queen of Arendelle, you left. What reason did you have to abandon such an opportunity?"

The King turned to watch her expectantly, a grave look on his face.

Elsa stood. "Father, A-Freki was going into shock. I delayed treatment for too long as it was. Had I waited any longer she might have died." It was the wrong answer. Her father's expression remained unchanged. Elsa remembered the day her father had taken her toys away, saying she'd outgrown them, after the Princess decided playing was more important than attending lessons. She'd been five.

"Freki is very popular among the pages and castle staff, Father. Leif of Berk sustained significant injury defending her from the Duke of Weselton's son. Her presence at my side over the past few months has caused several of my fellow pages to initiate conversations, which I have begun cultivating into friendships. If she were to die due to my negligence those months of work would be wasted." There. The gleam was back in her father's eye. For the moment, Anna's existence was safe.

"I hadn't realized your pet held such influence. You're beginning to show foresight, Elsa. Still, how could you have handled the situation better?"

"A successful ruler inspires her people to believe what she believes, and do what she wishes regardless of their own safety. She also makes use of any helpful circumstance to further her own cause." Elsa recited the words the King had called her to memorize at their last meeting, teachings from a great Chinese general.

"I should have called for the knights to punish Emil instead of using my ice, to solidify that their desires are mine as well. I should have voiced aloud that Freki needed immediate medical attention. If I had done so they would have understood and approved of my leaving. It would have made me appear compassionate." King Agdar nodded.

"Correct, Elsa. Those are things you could have done. See here," Her father moved over to his desk. Elsa followed and looked at the chart he withdrew from one of the desk's many drawers. The sides and top of the chart held names of goods like milk, eggs, textiles, and iron, while the center columns and rows held prices and quantities. Elsa could not discern any patterns from the dense document. The King pulled another sheet of paper which he lay over top the chart, this one covered in paragraphs of scrawled handwriting.

"We went over this at the last council meeting. Apparently over the last year farmers have raised the price of milk by nearly two-hundred percent. They say it's because a drought decreased their cows' production, but is that truly the case? People are greedy, Elsa, and now the people of Arendelle cry and write letters saying they cannot afford milk for their children. What should I have done?" Without waiting for a response he continued.

"I forced those farmers to lower the price of their milk, Elsa, that's what I did. And look here,"

The King pulled another chart from a drawer, this one a map of the Capital. The city centered around the castle, which was built over the fjord, and showing how the city began at the edge of the castle's training fields and sprawled out into the surrounding valleys in concentric rings broken up by forest-covered mountains. The overall effect was rather like a gigantic snowflake: castle in the center, then the fjord, the training fields, and then spears of the city proper shooting off in every direction, smaller areas popping up wherever the mountains yielded enough to permit urbanization.

A number of areas Elsa knew to be mostly residential were marked in orange, each in the fifth ring of the city, just before it began breaking up into farms and trading posts.

"As the population of Arendelle increases more people flood the city, filling once moderately spacious neighborhoods to bursting and transforming rambling mansions into apartments. These areas," The King pointed out the marked sections, "used to be largely second homes for nobles who spend their winters here, but over time most of the area has been rented out to the lower classes.

"The problem, Elsa, is that the rents are so high that some people have been forced to spread out into the mountains. Many of those people work in the city's center, some even work in the castle! I hear them complaining about rent prices and commutes in the hallways.

"So I set a maximum rent for apartments in the Capital city! People are calling me the benevolent king, Elsa, because I put my people first. That is what you must do, daughter. Find a way to put your people first, where they can see you do so."

The King rolled up the charts and their accompanying papers, and handed them to his daughter.

"Take these, study them. We will continue this line of discussion at our next meeting."

Dismissed, Elsa quickly found herself standing outside the closed doors of the King's office. It took her a moment, as it always did after a meeting with her father, to process everything.

She took a deep breath, eyes closed, then another. That had gone much better than she'd expected. Her father hadn't even mentioned Anna, though he certainly knew of her employment, which meant he didn't consider her important. That was a good thing.

Less good was his apparent lack of interest in Elsa's visits to her mother. The King tended to be deeply suspicious of any aberrant behavior in Elsa; any deviations she made from plan he had for her life generally led to angry interrogations, and always had harsh consequences. Nothing about meeting with the Queen matched his plans for the Princess. That he hadn't questioned her on it meant he didn't trust her answer, that he suspected something.

Elsa wished briefly for an adult figure who wasn't reporting to her father to talk to, someone to help her unravel the convoluted mess that was the relationship she had with her parents. She left that line of thought quickly; wishful thinking would get her nowhere, and there were more important matters at hand.

Elsa tucked the papers her father gave her under an arm and began walking briskly through the castle, breaking into a run as soon as the King's chambers were out of sight.

There was someone she desperately needed to see.

* * *

Everything hurt.

Anna whimpered softly, a tear falling down her face, mixing with a drop of sweat as it made its way through her hair onto the pillow beneath her head. The girl tried to kick her foot, but for some reason that sent a shooting pain into her chest that made it hard to breathe. It was too hot, and she felt like throwing up, but whenever Anna moved to face the bucket beside her bed she got dizzy, sometimes so dizzy she went back to sleep. Anna couldn't move her right arm, it was tied to something hard, and there was something wrapped around it that kept the limb from moving.

A dark blur kept moving into and out of her vision. She tried to say something and the blur moved closer. A dark-skinned young man wearing a moss-green tunic over long-sleeved gray underclothes came fuzzily into focus. The man had a bulbous nose, ears that stood out from his head, and a shock of messy brown hair that tumbled into his face. In his hands he held a wooden cup, which he brought close to Anna's face. She flinched away reflexively.

"You're awake, good! You must be thirsty, right? Your body needs lots of fluids to help it start healing." The man once more tried to push the cup at Anna's mouth. She turned away, sinking her face into her pillow. The man sighed.

Anna kept her face pushed into the pillow until sleep overtook her.

* * *

AN: The pain medication they're using on Anna is similar to aspirin, and is made from willow bark. People tended to use it only when they absolutely needed it, because salacin (the part that relieves pain) and the tannins from the bark not only tasted bitter and terrible, they also were really hard on the stomach, and many people were allergic to it. Allegedly, it was salacin that killed the composer Ludwig von Beethoven.

King Agdar references ideas from several different people. His ideas on what make a good king are synthesized from Niccolo Machiavelli's _The Prince_, which is a book about how to rule an autocratic government, dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici of Florence in 1532 AD.

Elsa's words on being a successful ruler are paraphrasing part of the first chapter of Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_, written around 2,500 years ago, one of my favorite books.

The King's ideas about the economy, fixing the prices of milk and rent, were popular ideas throughout the middle ages and have been tried throughout history and even in some places in modern times. You'll see how well his plan works out in later chapters.

Last thing: I'm going to have to introduce several characters in upcoming chapters, because it's hard to have Elsa preparing for knighthood without knights. I'd appreciate feedback on whether to a) write in OCs with unique personalities, or, as seems to be popular in the Frozen fandom, b) use characters from other Disney and Pixar movies.

Thank you to everyone reading this, it's so cool to think that other people want to read something I wrote.


	5. An Adventure

The noon bell had rung out nearly an hour past, the sound signaling the midday meal to most of those on the training fields. The few remaining spread out, grateful for the extra space and privacy.

Elsa by habit stuck to the center of the field; in her first months staying after the bell the Arms master kept her there, the better to watch and correct the Princess, who was often distracted and eager to slip away early. Now, nearly eighteen months later, she stayed after the bell voluntarily, taking over the archery field's middle targets for her personal use.

She shared the targets with only three others: the Arms master, who said that working with her now was a waste of time better spent on more hopeless individuals, Leif, who was the poor sap the Arms master wanted to work with, and a knight recently returned from diplomatic duty, still adjusting to the schedule at the castle.

No longer limited to archery for the full time, Elsa switched to javelin throwing. She'd begun practicing with javelins after the Arms master suggested trying arrows made of ice. She'd agreed to try, tempted by visuals of never-emptying quivers and a signature attack. The force used to propel arrows from even Elsa's miniature longbow had shattered the frozen arrow, shards of ice sinking into every nearby surface, including herself and the Arms master.

Throwing javelins took much less force to be effective.

Elsa pulled the last of the light throwing spears from where she'd stuck them in the ground and launched it overhand at the painted straw bale target. The spear arced slowly, picking up speed and power as the weapon used height and its own weight as the forces which made it thunk satisfyingly into the bale, though it still remained a good two feet away from the target's center. The Princess sighed and conjured yet another bunch, waving her arm to send them shooting into the already pockmarked ground behind her. She'd return to the castle once she hit the bulls-eye.

{Line break}

Along the far edge of the training fields, opposite the archery field, a rabbit nibbled dandelions from around a tilt-barrier, the long fence designed to separate jousting knights, preventing collisions and freeing the knights' attention, which permitted better aim and more interesting encounters. The jousting field was empty of jousters, no one wishing to tend their own mounts once the stable hand left for the day.

The rabbit, a large brown specimen, spoiled from living on the castle grounds away from most predators, failed to notice a red-furred wolf cub rambling slowly across the field, intent on exploring every scent sound or sight to be discovered.

Anna, however, noticed the rabbit. She froze for a full second, then dropped to the ground. The long grass kept her from seeing her prey, but that didn't matter. A light breeze blew the unwashed herbivore's mouthwatering smell right to her. She shuffled forward, furry elbows scraping the earth, rear bobbing up and down.

The rabbit paused, attention focused on flashes of red coming from somewhere on its left.

Anna bobbed forward again.

The rabbit shot to the right, using its short front legs to guide its powerful hindquarters. Anna jumped up after it, teeth flashing as she snapped at the herbivore's leg, almost as large as her own. She gave chase, tail sticking straight out behind her for balance as she ran, but lost the rabbit when trying to increase her speed further, her left hind paw stepping on her right front paw, sending the cub head over heels.

She watched forlornly for a long moment as the rabbit disappeared from sight, then decided to follow it. Nose staying at head-height since the rabbit was nearly as large as she and hopping up and down besides, Anna followed the scent. She couldn't yet separate the nuances of the smells, knowing only that the combination of them all equaled that particular rabbit.

The trail led her off the fields. The rabbit had run through a hole under the wall separating castle grounds from the city proper. Using her blunt front claws, perfect for digging dens and afternoon hideaways, Anna widened the tunnel and wriggled through.

To her right, mountains stretched high and unforgiving, their shallow soil giving way to bedrock too soon for any houses built there to have solid foundations. As such the area lay wild, one of several pathways up into the mountainous forests where Elsa had found Anna.

To her left the first ring of a branch of the city proper began. The first ring, once the only ring until the city outgrew its walls, held a combination of wealthy nobles and longstanding families and businesses too stubborn to move into the less expensive outer rings. If Anna had been thinking about anything other than the trail her nose followed, she might have wondered why the rabbit ran toward the city and not the mountains.

Her claws clicked on the cobblestone paths between high, Tudor-style mansions and storefronts. Several people made to stop her, some shouting while others raised arms or drew back boots, but all stopped upon sight of her prominently worn collar, studded with the seal of Arendelle's crown Princess. "Freki," muttered the noblemen and women, many of whom had children who were pages, squires or scholars within the castle. "Feistypants!" Said everyone else.

She ignored them all. The trail ended at the front gate of a medium-sized dwelling, probably once one of the nicer estates, now dwarfed by three and four-story mansions on three sides. The small gap under the gate may have fit a rabbit, but Anna had no hope of squeezing under it.

Foiled, Anna lay down and pouted, though none watching could interpret her heavy sigh and flicked back ears as such. Now bored, the red-furred cub decided to explore the city. She stood and trotted down the alley between estates.

From behind, Anna could smell the gardens and mini-orchards maintained by the households, could hear the chatter of people working and talking, though all she could see were cobblestones and walls. She kept walking, passing clothiers, a goldsmith's shop, and a bakery, all mingling with the walled-in homes. She reached the end of the first ring.

There was no place to dig under the wall between the first and second rings, but the gates lay open and she walked through with no comment from the single, harried-looking guard. Noise enveloped the wolf cub, people shouting and carrying things, chickens squawking, horses stamping their feet. Shops lined the street, selling anything and everything. The smells were overwhelming. Every time Anna's nose started to follow one scent another would cross over it, the two mingling sweetly 'till a third joined them, then more and more until Anna stopped paying attention to her primary sense, instead relying on sight to guide her.

Few people noticed her here, and she learned quickly to watch for boots and other things that might suddenly step or fall on her. One man who did see her knelt down and beckoned the pup over.

"Ah there, the Princess' own pet. Can't be having you wandering about, if one of us were to step on ya it'd be our heads!" The man, a tan skinny fellow with broad shoulders, black hair and sideburns, scooped Anna up and offered her a chunk of salted herring from a basket sitting on a cart beside him.

"I'll be back in a moment Tommy, just hold down the fort if ye can." He nodded to a somewhat frail looking blond boy, who was clutching a duck close to his chest, protecting it from being trampled by the crowd or bothered by the many cats circling the food cart hoping for scraps.

Anna did not care for being carried by this strange person who smelled of cats, salted fish and something caustic and vaguely reminiscent of sour corn. She squirmed and twisted violently, flailing her paws, growling and reaching for his hand with her sharp teeth.

"Oho, got a feisty spirit lass! Here then, no need for that." The man pulled a towel used to wipe off fishy surfaces from his belt and wrapped Anna in it, leaving just her tail and face uncovered.

The incensed wolf cub glared and growled impotently as the man tucked her under his arm and strolled off toward the first ring.

He stopped at the same gate the rabbit had escaped under, pausing a moment to sip some of the caustic corn smelling liquid from a metal flask before knocking.

"Ho Bulda! Got somethin' for ya t'deliver to the castle if'n ye will!" The man twitched nervously, groping at the empty space on his belt where the towel had been. He wiped his face on the arm of the deep green sweater he wore. Looking down at the disgruntled cub, he rambled.

"Ach she's a beautiful one, smart too. Gotta be my lucky day, you comin' by and givin' me a reason t'visit."

Someone on the other side of the gate undoes the latch, and the heavy thing swings open.

"Master Matthew Muggs, why are you here?" The man's hopeful expression fell, along with his gaze, lowering to look at the boy who'd opened the door. Anna's ears tried to perk; she recognized that voice.

"Kristoff, good lad! Ah, I've somethin' here for Bulda, supposin' she's around." Muggs craned his neck, trying to look behind Kristoff.

"I don't… she's finishes up her shift with Pabbie in a few hours. It's not another duck, is it? She isn't really an _animal_ doctor." Kristoff stepped out into the street and peered at Anna, lifting up a corner of the towel to reveal her ears, which pop forward.

"Feistypants!" The boy grabbed Anna from Muggs, pulling her free of the towel. Grateful to be free and in familiar hands, Anna barked her appreciation. The sound brings Sven, apparently loose in the area behind the gate, stumbling over. The reindeer nudged Kristoff insistently.

"I'll make sure the Princess' pet makes it safely back to the Castle, Master Muggs." Muggs raised a hand and opened his mouth to protest, but Kristoff adds "I'll also tell her you stopped by, and that you rescued Feistypants from…"

"Bein' trampled at the market. She'd have been squashed for certain if I hadn't saved 'er."

"Right. I'll tell Bulda you saved Feistypants from being squashed at the market. Very daring, I'm sure. Goodbye, Master Muggs." The boy stepped back behind the gate, closing it firmly in the disappointed fishmonger's face. He set Anna down beside Sven.

"You're going to have to stick around until Bulda comes home, I can't leave the house empty and Cliff's gone to visit friends somewhere, who knows when he'll be back."

Kristoff left Anna with Sven and headed over to an open-faced workshop and stable built onto the side of the house.

For the next several hours Anna and Sven explored and chased each other, running and dodging through the walled-in grounds surrounding the home, doctor's office, and workshop. They stop playing three times, once for food brought out by Kristoff, and twice for naps, conducted in a pile of hay outside the shop where Kristoff worked, switching between laboriously running his finger over the words of a book and writing things out on a tablet with chalk.

Anna woke from her second nap to hear Bulda and Kristoff talking. The sky was turning orange, night nearly upon them, and the wolf felt dread start creeping into the pit of her stomach.

Elsa liked knowing where Anna was. Back in the first month after the attack, when Anna had been stuck, human and bedridden in Elsa's chambers, she'd spent every spare moment looking after the redhead, encouraging her to drink and soothing her when pain or nausea overwhelmed the girl. When Pabbie pronounced Anna healthy enough to leave the bed, Elsa had kept Anna by her side constantly, keeping a padded basket on the fields for Anna to sleep in as a wolf during her outdoor training, glaring at anyone who questioned why the Princess' servant accompanied her to academic lessons. As time wore on and Anna's health continued to improve, along with her energy levels, Elsa allowed her to wander more, always placing strict guidelines on where Anna was to be when.

Anna had ignored every single one of those guidelines by chasing the rabbit instead of turning around and heading back to the castle. She was in trouble at least three times over for missing lunch, the day's lessons, and now dinner.

"You're saying Freki has been here all day? Princess Elsa stopped by the castle hospice late this afternoon looking for her. You stay here, I'm going to run her back to the castle now before the Princess does anything rash."

The healing woman took Kristoff inside the house, returning alone with a bag slung over her shoulder. "Freki, come out here sweetheart, you need to get back to the Princess."

Anna shook herself free of the hay and trotted up to Bulda, who picked her up, then set her back down again. She pulled something from her bag. It was a plain green dress, much too small for the voluptuous young healer.

"Now you and I know something Kristoff and poor Matthew Muggs don't, _Anna_. And I am not going to give Princess Elsa an opportunity to vent all that stored up fear on me when it was you who broke the rules and went gallivanting off today. So," Bulda knelt down and removed Anna's collar. "You are gonna switch back into the girl I know you are in there, put on this dress, and explain where you went to Princess Elsa, you got me?"

Anna, shame-faced, did as Bulda said. She moped behind the woman as they walked toward the castle. They walked in silence along the cobblestone paths, up to the gate separating the city from the castle grounds. Guards were getting ready to close it for the night. They begrudgingly agreed to wait until Bulda returned before locking it.

The doctor-in-training stopped at the end of the castle grounds, where the path that connected the fields and the castle from over the fjord began. She sighed and turned around. "Oh, Anna. Cheer up. Tell you what; assuming the Princess doesn't make a wolf-skinned hat out of you tonight, I'll talk to her about you coming over sometimes to play with Sven and Kristoff. As a human, mind, because that boy desperately needs friends with less than four legs."

That cheered Anna considerably, but the cheer fled when Bulda abandoned her at Elsa's chamber door.

{Line Break}

Elsa sat at her table, bent over a sheet of sums due to her mathematics tutor the next day. Across from her the other chair was unoccupied, and on the table a similar, though lower level, unstarted sheet of sums lay waiting for Anna's attention.

Not that Elsa's sheet held her attention.

The Princess had missed lunch entirely, rushing through her afternoon bath on the way to lessons so quickly she hadn't noticed Anna's absence. She had noticed when Anna didn't meet her for their History lesson, nor for Etiquette and Diplomacy, nor for any of their lessons that day. Elsa had checked her rooms, the main hall, and the castle hospice where Pabbie and his assistants worked, but no one had seen Anna or Freki since that morning.

Leif caught up with her as the Princess left to search the grounds. Together they searched, but found nothing. The younger Page suggested that Feistypants might have gone off exploring, as his own dogs at home in Berk were wont to do, and would come home on her own. Elsa, though loath to admit her favored one might run off after adventure, eventually agreed to wait until morning before ordering an official search.

Recognizing Elsa's worry, the brown-headed Page had stayed and finished his homework in her chambers while she paced, looking up every so often, awed as the Princess agitatedly cast sheets of frost across every surface in the room. He'd patted her shoulder stiffly as he left, evening curfew for the pages swiftly approaching.

Leif swung the door open to leave, finding Elsa's personal servant Anna standing before him, hand raised to knock. He stepped past her wordlessly, not sure what the rules were for talking to someone else's servant, though he sorely wanted to tell her off for not being there to help the Princess look for her pet.

He missed the look of hurt that crossed Anna's face at being dismissed by the boy who always took time to play with her in her wolf form.

Anna stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her and going to stand by Elsa, who was still staring unseeingly at her homework. She started to break the silence, but faltered, instead deciding to slide soundlessly into her chair and start her homework.

Elsa noticed her a minute later.

She stared at Anna, who appeared to be studiously working on her math sheet. The Princess blinked.

"Anna?" The girl looked up trepidatiously, clearly expecting Elsa to be angry.

"Yeah, Elsa?" The Princess stood and moved over to the girl, motioning her to get up. When Anna rose, Elsa watched closely for any sign of injury. Anna's ribs were fully healed, but Elsa would never forget the girl's frequently pained expression, back when she first started moving about again after the attack and would overexert herself, causing gasping breaths that made the small girl tear up in pain.

"Are you hurt?" Elsa asked slowly. When Anna shook her head Elsa moved, grabbing the wolf-girl into a hug that squeezed her shoulders- even yet careful to avoid putting pressure on Anna's ribs.

"You- you…" At a loss for words, Elsa repressed her urge to shake Anna like a rag doll, and settled instead for collapsing to the ground with the girl in her lap.

"I saw where Kristoff lives, and Bulda and Cliff and Sven." Anna volunteered the first bit of information about her adventure. She'd been to Pabbie's house then. All the healers who worked with him lived there, as did Kristoff because Bulda had adopted him.

Anna regaled Elsa with the details of her journey. The girl was stifled in the castle, Elsa realized. She needed something to do, some purpose like Elsa had in her quest for knighthood and the throne. So when Anna reached the end of her story and mentioned visiting Kristoff again, Elsa agreed.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. It might be good for you to have something to do while I'm in training. But remember that so far as Kristoff knows, he's never met you. He's only met Freki."

They talked out some details of Anna's future visits for a while, until Anna yawned, eyelids drooping. Elsa shifted and half carried, half dragged the girl to her bed, where she was asleep instantly.

Elsa was about to follow her when a knock sounded at the door. A figure entered, wearing a dark cloak with the hood pulled up, obscuring her features. She lowered the hood.

"Mother?" Elsa stood and went to her mother, hugging her tightly. The Queen returned the embrace.

"I can only stay for a moment, but I heard someone say… Freki, was missing. Is Anna?" 

The Queen saw Anna curled up on the bed. She walked over and sat beside the girl, hand reaching out to push an errant strand of reddish hair from her face. She spoke quietly with Elsa, inquiring about her studies, and Anna's, and if there was anything else her daughter wanted to talk about.

Elsa never knew how to feel about these clandestine visits, though she treasured them. Her mother would drop by unannounced, at odd hours, to check in on her. The Queen would talk about anything, about nothing. Always she asked after Anna, and after Elsa, and she would leave shortly after. Her father never commented on the visits, and she never saw anything in him suggesting he knew about them at all. If her mother ever discussed anything other than Elsa and her favored one the Princess would suspect the Queen of planning something, but she never did.

Elsa's mother left, and the Princess returned to her bed. Staring at the ceiling she wondered about the path her life was taking. Eleven years old and already she had murdered, maimed, and her greatest treasure and joy was a kidnapped wolf-child.

She wondered what life would be like without Anna's constant presence. She'd have killed Emil, certainly, and she would never have made friends with Leif, or gotten to know the castle's healers so well. Her mother would have continued to ignore her existence. Her life was much fuller for Anna's presence in it. But what about Anna's life?

The life of a wolf was a short and nasty one, filled with hunger and fighting. Wolves rarely lived longer than ten years, usually dying for reasons unrelated to their natural lifespan, and Elsa didn't know that the life of a half-wolf would be any better.

No, Anna's life was better for living with Elsa. So long as the Princess continued to strive for excellence in all things she saw no reason why their lives would not continue to improve. First as Elsa achieved knighthood with all privileges and power therein, most of which could easily be shared with her favored one, and eventually when she attained the throne, ruling as Queen with Anna still by her side, though Elsa still wasn't sure how that would work. Her father ruled singly, Elsa herself being the person he most confided in, and to her he confided only advice and grand tales, occasionally voicing suspicions about plots and double-dealings. He had no room in his life for an Anna.

Elsa would rule differently.

{Line Break}

AN: Matthew Muggs and Tommy are cameo appearances from a 1967 musical called _Dr. Dolittle_, which is nothing at all like the Eddie Murphy movie of the same name.


	6. Winter in Arendelle

Chapter Six:

* * *

It was winter in Arendelle.

A natural winter, heralded by a short autumn season filled with storms. Gradually the lightning and rain turned to sleet and snow, the fjord bearing more ice on its shores each day. The early winter was both Elsa's favorite time of year, and her most dreaded.

Travel in winter was dangerous, especially in early winter, when snow blocked the path of carts and open ground brought sleds to screeching halts. Trade suffered as merchants feared the additional risk of travel and there were always at least a few lives lost, people frozen in a trapped cart or wagon just a little too far away from shelter. Goods carried in sleds frequently arrived weeks behind schedule, carried on the backs of the sled drivers and their animals across snowless ground.

Travel in winter was still dangerous, but not nearly so much now that Arendelle had Princess Elsa.

The first winter after the Princess began lessons to control her powers the King ordered a grand procession, to begin at the first freeze of the year. The first Grand Procession began with a six-year-old Elsa in the lead, riding in a reindeer-drawn sleigh with the King and Queen, the entire court packed into a train of sleds that stretched a thin, winding path behind them.

She stood in the sleigh, feet spread and body leaning against its curled wooden bow for balance, hands stretched out over the grounds, clear glowing frost shooting from her palms to the road below. The frost turned to a dense snow that coated the roads, creating perfect frozen snow trails behind that would not melt until well into spring, when they would melt all at once in an instant of magical vanishment. That first year they'd visited every major earldom, county, barony and fiefdom in the kingdom, all the way to the duchy of Berk in the far north. The northernmost part of their journey had been largely ceremonial, the roads long covered in snow before they arrived, but the King had Elsa repave them in powder nonetheless, lest any noble family feel snubbed.

It had taken more than half a year. Meetings between nobles, tournaments, trade agreements and simply the deep weariness of constant travel had slowed their pace. Princess Elsa still heard members of the court talk about it occasionally, and she always listened as their accounts differed widely from her own memories of the event.

The women of court generally spoke of dances, held in the ballrooms of some of Arendelle's most reclusive nobles, such as that by Count Steimar of Ølda, whose castle looked out from a cliff face at the unforgiving ocean below. Lord Steimar decorated his ballroom with the flotsam of famous ships that had wrecked against the cliffs, retrieved by generations of Ølda's inhabitants.

Grethe, a baron's daughter who served in Queen Idun's court, had told all the maids and servants at least a dozen times how she'd seen the bones of drowned sailors polished and set on wooden frames like the most decorative of swords, displayed in a sitting room off the main ballroom. Elsa hadn't heard the story from Grethe herself, but Anna cheerfully relayed it to her over dinner one night after a day of Gerda dragging the impetuous redhead along to the castle laundry to see for herself just how hard it was to get blueberry stains out of white sheets.

The older squires who'd been pages during the Procession remembered Lady Knight Ragnehild's lance skewering the late Sir Torbjørn in a jousting accident that had nearly cost the knight her title.

Mostly she remembered being exhausted. Using her powers to blanket the ground in snow was as simple to her as gripping the reins of a horse, and she found the longer she held the magic the more it grew in strength, 'till by the end of each day she cast snow far beyond where she could see. But doing one thing continuously for hours each day wore on her, especially as a young child. Elsa remembered little of the journey besides the open roads before her, the comfort of having two parents behind her, and the sweet bliss of sleep at the end of each day. The Princess couldn't even recall most of the rooms she'd slept in, only the steamy wooden room at Sir Oakden's fiefdom and the chamber she'd shared with a litter of hound puppies in Berk standing out in her memory.

Apparently the journey wore on the King as well. The following winter he'd sent Elsa without him, guarded by Sir Arne, the commander of Arendelle's forces and the King's Champion, along with his squire Jørgon, whose diplomatic tongue soothed any noble feathers ruffled by Sir Arne's gruff, dismissive demeanor. The three travelled swiftly, covering only the roads most in need of securing, and returning within three months.

The Princess loved the feelings of relevance and power that accompanied her journey across the kingdom. For those long days she was more than a page, even more than the heir apparent. She was a hero, a monarch freeing her people to travel on smooth roads safe for sleds, sleighs and toboggans. The people cheered her arrival and waved at her departure.

She also dreaded the long journey, filled with ceaseless toil, sleeping on the ground wherever they were when the sun set, waking sore, muscles stiff from holding her body still in the rocking sleigh. Eating trail food, dried fish and venison and dehydrated vegetable soup cooked with melted snow into a hearty but monotonous stew.

They'd done the same each year following, the only changes being Jørgon's ascension to knighthood and their ever increasing pace as Elsa's stamina grew and enabled them to travel for longer periods. That and the red-furred wolf cub who divided her time between running alongside the sleigh and staying tucked into her basket, covered by a heavy blanket.

Their latest run had been their fastest yet, bringing them back just before Midwinter. Just in time for the Christmas holidays.

* * *

Elsa's rooms had never held so many people before. With the roads clear and the holidays underway, many pages and squires took advantage of the break in exercises and lessons to travel home until after the new year, when they would return to resume their training. A number remained, mostly those who lived far away or who otherwise couldn't or didn't want to go home. Elsa was perfectly content to let them remain in their chambers for the holidays, but Anna thought otherwise and had arranged a party for all the younger castle-dwellers.

Lately Anna had been thinking about a lot of things that Elsa hadn't. Anna's time spent at Grand Pabbie's city estate, hanging out with Kristoff and the healers had brought about a number of changes in the redhead, some of which Elsa liked.

Anna went home with Kristoff each afternoon during the week after he finished his work in the stables, and returned to the castle for dinner. At first, she'd complained to Elsa, the boy wouldn't speak to her, too shy to talk about anything that wasn't taking care of horses. Sven recognized her though, her scent the same whether buried under fur and leather or green-dyed wool and cotton. The stable boy lost his shyness fast once he caught her digging up carrots from the garden for the growing reindeer.

Whenever she could, Elsa met Anna at the city house and walked back with her to the castle.

The first time she'd done so, on the last day of the first week of Anna's visits, she'd kept quiet, joining Bulda on her way home after a shift at the castle hospice. Together they'd walked into the yard to find it empty. After sharing a brief look of concern and exasperation, the Princess and training healer started walking around the yard. The clopping sound of hooves on cobblestone drew their attention to the alley behind the estate.

There they found Kristoff running hard, a long stick thrown over his shoulder with a carrot tied to a string on its end, trailing behind. Sven ran after Kristoff, teeth snapping at the carrot. Perched on Sven's back, feet clinging tight to his sides, knees up around her ears and hands gripping the reindeer's short fur, was Anna.

Kristoff ran into Elsa. The carrot swung wide and Sven, chasing it, performed a neat right-hand turn that threw Anna off his back into Bulda, knocking her to the ground. Sven caught the carrot and trotted away down the alley toward the inner-city markets, munching happily.

There was a moment when no one moved. Kristoff groaned and shook his head.

"Unh... what?" Brown eyes met blue, and he jumped up.

"Your highness! I'm so, so sorry." Beyond them, Anna rolled off Bulda and began her own stream of apologies. The troublemaking pair helped the princess and healer to their feet.

"It was my fault, Princess Elsa. I was in charge, it's not Anna's fault."

"No, Elsa I'm sorry! I jumped on Sven, Kristoff just took us out here so we could run longer. It was my idea, it's not his fault!" Here Bulda joined the conversation.

"I don't care whose fault it is, but Kristoff you best go get Sven before he makes it to the market and starts eating people's wares. He eats something expensive you'll be paying for it. Anna, you take the princess inside and make her some tea from the blue tin. The blue tin, and follow the instructions written inside the lid. Make me some too, while you're at it. We're both going to have awful headaches coming on."

Bulda and Elsa spent the rest of the evening talking while being waited on by their contrite wards. When Elsa and Anna left that evening, the Princess was surprised to find they'd each made a new friend.

"Squire Nils! You made it!" Jolted back into the present, Elsa looked up to find yet another knight-to-be joining the mob in her quarters. Pages and squires, along with Kristoff and another stable hand named Roy who claimed to be twelve but who barely came up to Elsa's chin, gathered in the large space she used to practice her powers in the mornings. Anna had set up a table filled with snacks and drinks wheedled from the kitchen staff by the persuasive girl.

Nils, a tall, buff redhead who looked a great deal like a younger, hairier version of the knight he served, Sir Oaken, joined squires Tonje and Hein by the window. Squire Tonje and her brother, Page Terje, were the children of Sir Torbjørn and had moved to the castle with their mother after he died. The siblings were both lanky with ragged brown hair always falling into their eyes. Terje was only a year younger than Elsa, so she'd spent time with him on the fields, and knew he ran faster than any of the other pages. She barely knew Tonje existed, had never spoken to the squire, who apparently was frequently away with her knight Sir Kenneth. Elsa watched as the squires were joined by several pages and spread out to converse in a large circle.

These people were overwhelming. Elsa was overwhelmed. She felt overheated, as though sitting in a corner of her own room was more tiring than practicing archery for an afternoon.

Someone touched her shoulder. Elsa started, thorns of ice forming on her hands as they moved up to protect her face. Leif stepped back, arms raised in apology.

"Elsa, sorry I startled you." The ice dissipated as Elsa lowered her hands, a blush forming across her cheeks. It was too loud, she hadn't heard Leif approach.

"No, Leif, it's fine. What is it?"

"Just wanted to say thanks." Elsa cocked an eyebrow at the boy, not sure why he wanted to thank her.

"For the party," Leif added, "All us loners don't really have anywhere to go during the winter holidays. I mean, Berk is way, _way_ up north, so I was just kinda sticking to my room before your servant Anna slid that invitation under my door. And I know Squire Hein was pretty down about not getting to 'polish the bones' or something at his dad Lord Steimar's place."

So that's who Hein was. Elsa looked over at the brown-skinned boy with thick black hair curling tight against his head. The older boy looked as uncomfortable as Elsa felt, gazing out the window and listlessly spinning a white-handled scaling knife around his fingers.

"It was Anna's idea. She had the idea I might be… lonely, after all the time spent changing the roads." Elsa put as much sarcasm into the word _lonely_ as possible. She'd returned to the castle eager to finally sleep without two hulking knights guarding her sides, eat without listening to other people chew, breathe without smelling the faint scent of someone else's body in her immediate vicinity. How could she have been lonely when she was never _alone_? But Anna didn't understand that. She'd spent the entire journey as a wolf, and apparently the time without conversation had traumatized her more than it had in past years.

Elsa looked around for Anna. The girl was pulling the short stable hand, Roy, over to Squire Hein. The squire looked incredulously down at the scrawny boy and bouncy redhead. The Princess couldn't hear what they said, but Hein's dark brown eyes flashed and he stopped twirling his knife, putting it away before reaching out to clap Roy on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

Now Anna was coming toward her, dragging Kristoff along by one arm. Elsa briefly pictured a sheepdog she'd seen once, following whistled directions from its farmer to gather up a scattered flock. Anna was deftly herding her guests into groups, trying to keep everyone engaged and comfortable. If only Elsa could be both at the same time, she'd declare Anna an expert hostess. As it was, the Princess' energy levels were dropping dangerously close to zero, her temper dropping with them.

"Page Leif! Have you met Kristoff? Outside of the stables, I mean. He's different when he's not making you re-groom your horse sixteen times because you missed spots."

Leif and the stable boy started talking, quickly finding they both shared an interest in ice of all things, having both spent time helping icemen when they were younger.

Elsa took a long drink from a cup of spiced cider Anna had put in her hand, taking a moment to hide her face behind the heavy mug. She tried to tune out the boys' voices behind her, but when another unidentified voice joined them it set her on edge, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rising in protest against the intrusion.

She stood, leaving her iced over mug of cider on the table. As she walked away the group behind her moved to appreciate the thick, clear layer of ice coating the chair she'd been sitting on.

Anna caught her by the door.

"Where're you going?" Wide blue-green eyes looked into piercing cerulean.

"I'm going out, Anna. I need… I need to go." She turned the door's handle, but a slim freckled hand covered hers before she could pull the door open. The hand jerked back.

"Ow!" Anna's hand went to her mouth, where she sucked at stinging fingers to melt the tiny ice splinters stabbing the digits. "Why did you do that?"

Guilt, along with a hint of something uncomfortably like satisfaction filled Elsa as Anna backed up, giving her space.

"I didn't mean to, but Anna, the people, there are so many, I… we'll talk later, after the party's over." She pulled the door open and walked away, headed outside where she would be alone in the bitter cold and deep winter snow.

* * *

AN: Woah tons of names and people! If you're lost in a sea of strange names and having trouble keeping track of everyone you're in good company- that's partly how Elsa's feeling right now.

Also, the names of places intentionally semi-correspond to actual places in Norway, because the story's set in the country of Arendelle so things should be similar, but not the same. Berk is located, as mentioned, in the northernmost part (Varangerhalvøya nasjonalpark on Google Maps). Ølda is approximately midway between Berk and the city of Arendelle (which is Bergen on Google Maps).


	7. Squire

Anna met Katie the week Kristoff had influenza. He and the other infected citizens were confined to a closed off section of Pabbie's mansion to prevent the virus from spreading. With the healing staff so overworked and Anna sitting bored, Bulda quickly put the young redhead to work.

The room was yellow, bright with sunlight from a precious glass-paned window that reflected off polished pine floorboards. Lined with plain box-framed beds, each with its own nightstand and water pitcher, basin and short stool, the room housed those patients who weren't contagious and for some reason could not be treated in their own homes, as was the healers' preference.

Anna fetched meals and laundry, fed the palsy-struck Thomas his soup, helped Jon, the orphan boy with a broken leg, to the privy and back, and emptied the chamberpot for Elin, the woman who was "no better than she ought to be" who'd just gone through a difficult childbearing. Elin's son didn't yet have a name, the superstitious mother waiting 'till he reached three months of age to ward off bad luck.

Katie spoke on Anna's third day working in the yellow room, after Elin and her son went back to wherever they came from, leaving her the only patient on that half of the room.

"Thank you." The words, said after Anna finished sponging sweat away from the woman's face and neck, came so softly from the emaciated figure, swamped in the small bed, that had Anna not been graced with the hearing of a wolf she'd have missed them. Still Anna stopped, not sure if she'd imagined the words from the thus-far catatonic patient. She moved closer, taking in the limp gray hair streaked with strands of brown framing a deeply tan face overlaid with a thousand paper-thin wrinkles.

"I'm sorry, did you say something, miss?" The woman responded with a wracking cough that had Anna scurrying for a glass of water, which she held against desiccated lips as the woman drank. The cough subsided, and tired green eyes blinked at the girl.

"Thank you," she said again, just as softly as before. Her eyes closed and the woman fell once more into a restless sleep.

Other patients came and went, the influenza virus thankfully contained before it could become an epidemic. Kristoff recovered and once again joined Anna each afternoon for studies and games. Cliff, freed from his work in the quarantine room, replaced Anna in the yellow room.

Soon August was upon them, and in the blink of an eye it was the 30th, the day before Elsa's 13th birthday.

"Miss Katie!" Anna burst into the yellow room, bearing a sack that took two arms to hold. Cliff didn't look up from his work changing the bandages on a girl from the orphanage who'd had boiling water poured on her leg in a kitchen accident.

"She's not doing well today Anna, I don't know that she'll be able to hear you." Not that she ever could, the healer added silently. Katie had been unresponsive off and on for months, and no one besides Anna ever claimed to have heard the woman make a sound. General consensus was that old age had addled the widowed farmer's wits and rendered her mute.

"I know she's listening, even on her bad days." Pulling a stool up to Katie's bedside, Anna sat and loosened the drawstring on her sack.

"Hi Miss Katie. I brought you something," she drew two strips of fur from the sack, and started tying them around the still woman's wrists. She spoke quietly, so that Cliff and the other patients wouldn't overhear. "I made these from a rabbit that I finally caught. Kristoff showed me how to clean and skin it. Elsa and I had rabbit stew for dinner last night. Gerda helped me with the seasonings, and Elsa had two helpings, so I don't think she was lying when she said she liked it, like she was that time with the bread."

She finished tying the rabbit fur cuffs around Katie's wrists.

"Anyway, I made these for you, see how there's fur on both sides so it's soft on the inside and still looks pretty? Now maybe your wrists won't hurt so much when Cliff moves them to make sure you don't get sores.

"I used the rest of the fur, and some fur from another rabbit that I caught with a snare, for Elsa's present. Would you like to see it?" Anna watched for Katie's blink, and listened carefully for any change in the woman's heart rate that might indicate awareness. Sometimes she got lucky and Katie would respond, and sometimes she wouldn't. The days when Katie was completely unresponsive, even to Anna, were getting more frequent.

Refusing to let her rising sadness over Katie's approaching death ruin the moment, Anna continued, rubbing her fingers gently over Katie's hands to warm them.

"Elsa's going to be made a squire soon. Usually it happens when you're fourteen but Elsa says her father might make her one sooner because he made her a page early too."

Anna remembered that conversation clearly. It'd been one of the few times over the past year that she and the Princess had spoken. Anna had been curled by the fireplace, enjoying the warmth against her fur. The Princess had sat down beside her and asked if they could talk. She'd just returned from a visit with the King and it had reminded her that she would not be a page forever.

Anna had transformed back into a girl, and they'd talked long into the night about the future, about how one day Elsa would be Queen and how she wanted Anna to be with her. Elsa didn't know how that would work, she just asked Anna to be patient.

Anna didn't understand. All she wanted was to be near Elsa, and to have fun and maybe eat chocolate for dinner even though it always gave her a stomachache. She understood, vaguely, that Elsa was a princess and one day would be a queen, but she didn't know what that _meant_. It all seemed much more serious than just hanging about the gardens and sometimes dropping by to pat people on the head like Elsa's mother did.

But she kept quiet and didn't question that Elsa knew best, and went to sleep that night happier than she'd been in months, since the Christmas party, because things were finally starting to go back to normal.

She'd started spending all her time in Elsa's rooms as a wolf after the Christmas party. Elsa had eventually returned to her chambers, long after the last guest had gone, still tense with an unspoken unhappiness. Anna tried to find out what was wrong, how to apologize for whatever she'd done, but Elsa only snapped at her to _go away_.

She'd complied, as much as possible.

Since then she'd made several efforts to make amends with the Princess, the first being a proudly presented crow, caught after hours of lying in wait to ambush the bird by the horses' feed bin.

After an initial period of screaming, and a lesson where Anna learned it was not appropriate to give people gifts of dead animals in bed, Elsa seemed to appreciate the gift, and had used its feathers to fletch her next batch of arrows.

But Elsa still avoided her, avoided everyone, as much as possible.

The faint twitch of an eyelid brought Anna's attention back to the present.

"Oh! You are awake! That's great! So, Katie, Elsa's going to be a squire soon, and once you're a squire you start to learn a whole bunch of different things, like dueling and jousting and dancing, plus whatever your knight decides to teach you. Elsa's going to need a lot of new equipment. I made her this," Anna pulled a soft rabbit fur undershirt from the sack, "it goes underneath chain mail to keep the links from pinching your skin. I also made some fur-lined gloves, but the master seamstress had to finish them because my sewing isn't good enough for that fine of work. Do you think she'll like them?"

Katie's right eyelid twitched, which Anna always took to mean an affirmative.

"Gosh, I hope so. I mean Page Leif bought her something, and Bulda made her some really cool tea that I'm not supposed to touch because it has something called 'caffeine' in it that's good for Elsa but not me. But I don't really know how to make anything cool, and I don't have money to buy stuff, so I hope she likes it."

A sudden jerk startled Anna, making her jump back.

"Katie?" The woman jerked again, all the muscles in her left side bunching and releasing spasmodically. Katie's heart started beating hard, and then it skipped a beat, and skipped another.

"Cliff!"

* * *

Elsa rolled over again, arm reaching across her cool bed for a warm presence that wasn't there. She sighed, and sat up. It was still dark, the morning of her 13th birthday, but there was no use trying to sleep any longer without Anna beside her.

Last night Kristoff had run up to her, red-faced with a heaving chest, to explain that Anna would be spending the night at Pabbie's, saying goodbye to a friend she'd made who was dying. Elsa knew about Katie in a vague way, so she hadn't been especially surprised. She felt sad that Anna was sad, annoyed that Anna's friendship with the departing might ruin her birthday, and guilty about feeling annoyed.

But understanding the reason for Anna's absence didn't make sleeping without her any easier.

Deciding to start her morning routine early rather than dwell on her addiction to Anna's warmth, the Princess Page threw herself into the exercises with unusual vigor. She finished, sweat-soaked and panting, as dawn sent its first rosy fingers across the dark sky.

Still feeling unsettled she started again, ignoring the twinges and soreness that warned the page against overworking her still-young muscles.

A knock caught her in the middle of a stretch, folded over herself on the ground. The heavy-browed servant on the other side of the door boasted epaulettes marking him as one of the king's personal staff.

"You've been summoned to his Majesty's audience chamber. King Agdar requests your presence posthaste, your highness." The Princess' breath, still heavy with exertion, quickened.

"The audience chamber? Not his Majesty's office?" The servant nodded.

"Aye, your highness, where he deals with public an' official matters. There's something of a commotion goin' on. He's been callin' for all sorts of people since the night before last when the ship from Corona came in."

Elsa had noticed the ship, but hadn't known it came from Corona. She glanced down at sweat-soaked nightclothes.

"I'll be there shortly. If you could allow me a moment to make myself presentable?"

"Aye, your highness."

* * *

Sir Arne greeted Elsa at the audience chamber's entrance, ushering her quietly to the room's center, where she bowed deeply toward the throne, eyes trained on her father, waiting for permission to rise. He nodded curtly and she straightened, moving to stand dutifully at his left hand beside the throne.

The King's attention was focused on a man standing before him, dressed in the impeccable blue and white dress uniform of a merchant ship captain. The two were talking quietly together, and Elsa could not make out the conversation.

Instead, the Princess surveyed the room. In addition to herself, the King, the merchant captain, and Sir Arne, there were half a dozen servants, the same number of crewmen dressed in their own blue and white uniforms, Gerda, who was looking over a list with one of the men and ordering a number of others about, several knights and a few squires. Altogether just over a score, perhaps one tenth the room's full capacity, but still more than it usually held at this early hour.

The Captain stepped back and turned to discuss something with Gerda and the crewman- the first mate, Elsa corrected, interpreting the insignia adorning the woman's chest.

The King turned to address his daughter.

"Elsa," he said quietly, "there's been a development in Corona that provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to make headway in our relations with their royal family."

What royal family? Elsa thought to herself.

The kingdom of Corona suffered from a shortage of royal family members. The king and queen were both only children, their own only child stolen from them when she was an infant. General opinion held that unless "the lost princess" were found Corona would use its odd semi-democratic government system to elect a new king and royal family from the royal counsel.

As though sensing her thoughts, the King continued. "The Princess of Corona has been found. Captain Swanson reports that Princess Rapunzel has spent the last seventeen years locked in a tower by a sorceress and has been rescued by a former criminal named Flynn Rider." He paused a moment to let Elsa absorb the information. "The Princess is apparently educated to some degree, but not in matters relating to politics or other noble pursuits. She seems naïve and lacks the skills necessary for ruling a kingdom."

Elsa thought about the enormous burden of learning to rule, and tried to imagine being faced with an entire childhood's worth of lessons all at once. She pitied the found princess.

"Sir Arne, Sir Jørgon, Arms master Nils!" the King called out. The knights and the Arms master approached the throne.

"Today is Princess Elsa's thirteenth birthday, and marks the end of her fifth year as a page. Arms master Nils, do you find Page Elsa's work satisfactory for her ascension to squirehood?"

Though she remained stone-faced, inwardly Elsa reeled at the suddenness. If her father was publically calling for her teachers' opinions she could be certain that they had already found her worthy of a squireship. But she didn't understand. Why was her father squiring her now instead of with all the other rising squires at the end of the harvest?

She listened mutely as Nils recounted her work in archery, in javelin throwing, in horsemanship, wrestling, armed and unarmed combat. He praised her ingenuity with the ice javelins, and her tenacity in mastering the art of the longbow. He never mentioned that she'd had no choice regarding her long hours on the practice fields, nor did he bring up how she'd never had a fair wrestling match, the other pages always intentionally throwing themselves for fear of her wrath.

He finished and Sir Arne took over. He quoted her diplomacy tutor, and Master Kent, her mathematics tutor. Class by class he went over the progression of her education, never praising or criticizing, citing only satisfactory progress.

Elsa stepped around to face her father at his beckon, and knelt. The oath of a squire wasn't as binding, as permanent, as that of a knight, but it was a serious promise nonetheless. She swore allegiance to Arendelle, to her King and to her knight, whoever he or she may be. Elsa vowed to uphold the ideals of knighthood- honesty, humility, reverence, respect, obedience, courtesy and discipline- as though she were already knighted.

The Princess lost track of what was happening, repeating after the King automatically.

The room burst into applause and Elsa realized she'd finished her oaths, and that she stood before them now as a squire rather than a page.

"Sir Jørgon!" The knight, still at the front of the room from when he'd been called earlier, though Elsa realized he hadn't been asked to speak, came to stand beside Elsa before the King.

"Sir Jørgon, the situation in Corona is precarious. King Patrick and his wife Queen Magda are surely overwhelmed with joy at the return of their daughter. We must send our congratulations at once. Additionally, Princess Rapunzel must be overwhelmed with the responsibilities of royal life. Sir Jørgon, do you feel a friend who is familiar with the working of a kingdom might do the princess of Corona good?"

"Your Majesty, friends are always welcome in difficult times. I believe now is a time when the new princess of Corona sorely needs friends, especially ones familiar with castle life."

"I see we are in accord. Sir Jørgon, you have asked permission to take Princess Elsa on as your squire."

Elsa blinked. _J__ørgon_ had asked to take her on as a squire? She looked over the knight- her knight- trying to understand his motivations.

Jørgon stood half a head lower than Sir Arne, putting him at around 5'9, with a lean, bony build that he hid with draping clothes that made him clumsy. His short black hair was oiled to keep it from sticking up from his head like grass, and it contrasted well against his light brown skin, given him by his father, an Agrabahn expatriate.

What he lacked in physical prowess he more than made up with his fervent adherence to the ideals of honor, courtesy, and the other ideals of knighthood. Jørgon was a born diplomat, limited only by his reluctance to outright lie or bend the truth. His skill in offering the right words to smooth any person or situation were probably the only reason he'd made it to knighthood. Put a sword in his hand and he'd do his best to hand it off to someone else, but give him a book of poetry and he'd have your sworn enemy declaring his love for you within a week.

That wasn't even an exaggeration. Sir Jørgon was the direct cause for the sudden marriage between Sir Oaken and his husband Alf, a pacifist merchant who owned a trading post on the edge of Oaken's fief. According to Squire Nils they'd already adopted three children together.

The Princess watched Sir Jørgon's Adam's apple bob nervously under the King's gaze as he nodded.

"Indeed, your Majesty. It is my hope that Princess Elsa might flourish in the exotic fields where you send me to further Arendelle's diplomatic success. Forging bonds with foreign dignitaries that will last into her own reign as the future Queen, and certainly will strengthen your Majesty's own relations with other nations."

Sir Jørgon carefully toed the line between playing on the King's own ambitions and the ambitions he held for Elsa, just barely avoiding the penalty for insolence incurred by hinting that King Agdar's reign would not be an eternal one.

"Her potential as a symbol of Arendelle's strength goes to waste, if I may be so bold, when kept in the shadow of Arendelle's great castle. It is out in the world, interacting with those who know little of our heritage, our history of overcoming the harshness of cold and mountain air, where she will shine." The King inclined his head slightly.

"I could not agree more, Sir Jørgon, which is why I choose to approve your request. Squire Elsa, Princess of Arendelle, you are hereby sworn to the service of Sir Jørgon for the duration of your squireship, until such time as you attain knighthood, die in the attempt, or are otherwise dismissed from his service. Do you understand and accept this bond?"

"Yes, your Majesty. I swear my service to Sir Jørgon for the duration of my squireship, until I attain knighthood, die in the attempt, or am otherwise dismissed from his service. I understand and accept the bond."

King Agdar stood and, stepping forward, took hold of Elsa's shoulders, turning her around to face the varied people watching the proceedings intently. He reached out and clapped Sir Jørgon on the shoulder, pulling him until the knight stumbled into place beside Elsa. Knight and Squire bowed to the crowd, which erupted into cheers, some more hearty than others. Glancing upward through blonde lashes Elsa could make out Gerda clapping primly, the seaman beside her roaring with both hands cupped over his mouth while Captain Swanson looked on at him in quiet exasperation while clapping in a strong and dignified manner.

When the cheering died down the King spoke up again.

"Captain Swanson, it is my intention to put the newly squired Princess' diplomatic skills to the test at earliest convenience. Is you ship ready to sail?"

The Captain bowed. "Aye, your Majesty. Thanks to your skilled staff, most especially the esteemed matron Gerda, my ship will be set to sail within the day."

"Sir Jørgon, you and Squire Elsa will be on Captain Swanson's ship when it sets sail. You will make haste to Corona, following the instructions I have had written out for you."

There was a period of motion, everyone moving at once in different directions, hurrying to prepare for the ships' departure. Feet moving without instruction from her head, Elsa found herself out in the hallway, Sir Jørgon still at her side.

"Usually in cases such as these it would be the squire's job to assist me in packing and preparing for our journey. However, nothing is happening as it usually does right now, is it?" Elsa's knight tossed his head in annoyance, reminding Elsa of a newly-broken destrier faced with a bit.

"I would apologize for the many breaches in protocol this morning brought you, Elsa, but I doubt it would help much. Go pack, your highness. You will meet me at the docks in two hours' time. We'll spend tonight going over the scrolls his Majesty left me, and decide on a direction for your education in this somewhat unorthodox arrangement."

The Princess made her way back to her chambers, spending a long moment gazing around at the rooms which had been her home for the last five years. A maid- Anna knew her by name but Elsa could never remember it- had already begun packing up the room. Her father must have ordered it, as everyone in the castle staff knew the Princess preferred her rooms to be left alone.

Elsa dismissed the maid, too unsettled to bother being polite about it, though fortunately the girl seemed understanding rather than upset as she left. Anna's influence, no doubt. Elsa wasn't sure if it was good or bad that the younger castle staff no longer quivered at the sight of her.

She took to packing, losing herself in the methodical motions as she tucked clothing, weapons, gear, books and writing utensils, as well as any other items necessary for a long journey abroad into a growing pile of luggage.

It wasn't until she stopped in the middle of folding Anna's favorite yellow shirt to put into a leather carrying case that the full enormity of her situation reached her.

"Anna!"

Elsa tore from the room, racing to the end of the hall where a soldier stood idly watching for mischief. She pulled at his shoulder, commanding his complete attention.

"Soldier, I require your aid. Go with all possible speed to the city estate of Healer Pabbie. Find there my maidservant Anna and have her follow you here. Please," Elsa's voice broke a little, betraying the panic she felt, "time is of the essence."

The guard grunted an acknowledgement and broke into a run toward the castle gates. Elsa returned to her rooms, helplessly wishing her magic included the ability to conjure people as well as ice- that she could wave her hand and Anna would stand before her, eager and ready to set off on a new adventure.

But she couldn't, and Anna wasn't, so Elsa packed in silence, finishing quickly with two clearly separated piles of luggage, her own in the center of the room, Anna's much smaller pile at its right. The Princess checked the time, finding just over an hour had passed and soon she would have to leave for the docks.

A maid passed by and paused, staring in amazement at the white ice covering the room's floor, walls and ceiling, icicles dropping so low they touched the ground, forming pillars at the room's edges, the faint dust of snowflakes raining from an invisible cloud overhead. Then she saw the Princess' drawn face and hurriedly continued down the hall.

"Hurry, Anna."

* * *

Stein had been a soldier for nineteen years; six out in glacial wastelands serving the Count of Berk, another four traipsing up and down the coastline when the Count decided military intervention necessary to ensure the safe travels of various merchant caravans, then he'd been promoted and sent to the capital city of Arendelle. He'd always found it funny that the capital city bore the same name as the nation. "I work in Arendelle of Arendelle", he'd joke over a pint with anyone who bothered to listen.

He liked guarding the Page wing. Some of the tiny idiots reminded him of himself, others of comrades he'd grown up with. Many a prank he'd foiled, only to play it himself on his bunkmates in the barracks. Idiot Stein, they called him, because that was his favorite word, liberally dispersed in conversation with anyone not a superior officer, and sometimes even then.

The healers pointed him down a bare hallway, to "the yellow room" through the door on the left. He almost closed the door again, at first seeing an empty room, but then light gleamed off shining red hair, and he stepped inside.

Little Anna sat there on a stool, gray-faced, eyes rimmed red from tears dried hours before. The woman she stared at was dead. Stein recognized the pallor and stiff posture of the recently deceased, though he was used to it being accompanied by lethal wounds, not old age.

He made a symbol in the air before him, a soldier's superstitious ward meant to lead angry spirits away toward peace. He desperately wished for more time to allow the tiny thing before him to grieve, even as he gently grasped her shoulder. She didn't start, but slowly turned to look up at him, and his heart broke just another bit more at seeing hopelessness in a young face usually so filled with joy.

"You're needed back at the castle urgently, little miss," Stein gruffed, wishing he knew how to speak more kindly.

The girl silently gathered up her things and followed him.

It was unnerving, he found, watching the chatty little troublemaker drag her feet after him so quietly. And so slowly, especially with speed being of such important at present.

"Please, little miss, the Princess needs you to hurry." At this the girl looked up, a spark of interest, of caring, flashing in her eyes.

"She's been squired to that namby-pamby idiot Sir Jørgon, and the King's sending the pair of 'em to Corona, right now. I dunno what she needs you for, but at least you ought to say goodbye."

The girl stopped in the middle of the street, distracted citizens avoiding the sudden roadblock automatically.

"Goodbye?" She whispered, so Stein could barely hear it. The girl seemed to quiver for an instant, taking in the soldier's words.

Then she was off, running far faster than poor Stein could keep up with. But that was for the best, he thought, panting heavily as he gave up the chase after only a minute, Anna already lost from sight.

Maybe she'd make it in time.

* * *

"Elsa!" Anna forced the door open so it hit the wall with a loud pounding noise.

"Elsa!" She barely recognized the only home she remembered, every personal item stripped from the walls and table and floor, the bathing chamber bare of Elsa's special scented soap, and the flea shampoo she used on Anna whenever she spent too long in the woods or tall grass. Anna's clothes, her collar, everything she owned was missing, or so she thought until it occurred to her to look in the leather bags and cases piled to one side of the room.

The Princess was gone.

Anna turned and went back to the door. Julie was walking by, her arms filled with folded linens for one of the other page's rooms.

"Julie, please, do you know where the Princess is?" The maid kept moving, walking into Elsa's room, and Anna felt something cold inside when she realized that the linens Julie carried weren't for another room, that Julie was making up this room for someone else. Someone who wasn't Elsa or herself.

"She's at the docks now for sure Anna, best run if you're to catch her before the ship leaves."

"Thanks, bye!"

"I'll send your things to Pabbie's place!" Julie called after her, but Anna didn't hear, the blood pounding too loudly in her ears to take in any other sounds. Tears trekked new paths across already stained cheeks, blown back by the speed with which Anna ran toward the docks.

She could run only just over halfway there before exhaustion overtook the young wolf-girl, and she hobbled, wincing at cramped muscles, the remaining distance.

The ship was still in the fjord, Anna noted with relief. Its size was too great come to the docks itself, so a pair of massive rowboats carried goods and people to and from it.

"Elsa!" The cry was quiet, Anna's lungs still sore from her run and reluctant to release enough air for a louder shout.

"Princess Elsa!" She tried again, only a hair louder than before.

"The Princess is already aboard, miss. Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

Anna whirled to face the speaker, whose carefully enunciated words belied his gravelly voice.

She looked up and further up 'till she reached the man's face. A tall, broad man in a crisp ironed white uniform with blue trim regarded her, a barrel labeled "pickles" that looked to weigh at least ten stone resting easily in his arms.

"I-I have to get to the Princess, I'm _hers_. I mean, I'm her maid and I need to find her. Can you help me?"

The sailor set the barrel down with a loud sigh, twisting his back with an audible _crunch_ as the vertebrae realigned. He knelt down so that his head was only a bit above Anna's.

"The Princess won't be needing a maid aboard _The Northern Courier_, miss. Nor, I think, will she be needing one in Corona. There's no passengers on the roster save for her Highness and Sir Jørgon."

The man waited patiently as Anna took deep, shaking, sobbing breaths, clutching the sack she still carried desperately, like it could turn into Elsa and hug her back. Eventually he stood, not wanting to get in trouble for slacking. As he hefted the barrel back into his arms a tiny hand shot out to pull at his pant leg.

"If- if I can't be with her, could you see that this goes with the rest of her things? It's, um, it's got some things she'll need now that she's a squire." The tiny redheaded girl offered up the sack to the man, who gently set it atop the barrel, balanced carefully at its center.

"I'll make sure her highness gets it."

The man boarded one of the rowboats.

Anna watched the rowboat make its way to _The Northern Courier_, and watched as the man climbed a ladder up the side of the ship, using a pulley to hoist the barrel and her sack up after him.

She sat on the docks and watched as all the other sailors scurried to and fro' preparing for departure, eyes trained on the ship's deck, the only place she saw anyone on the ship stop to look out toward the docks.

Finally, her waiting paid off. A blonde-headed figure dressed in blue made its way to the deck railing.

_Elsa_.

Anna waved frantically, and the figure waved back, leaning over the railing to get that little bit closer to her Anna. Anna kept waving 'till her arms grew heavy.

The ship's anchor slowly rose from the water, and Anna despaired as the ship groaned, departure imminent.

A white, sparkling cloud formed over Elsa's head. Anna saw her Princess pushing and pulling at something within the cloud, working it over for long, precious minutes before shoving the entire thing toward the shore.

The snowy mass drifted toward the docks and Anna's eyes flickered between it and Elsa, who was beginning to grow even smaller as _The Northern Courier_ began its journey to Corona.

The girl collapsed onto the rough wood of the dock as the ship finally disappeared from view. Her eyes were tired of crying, her body dehydrated, energy gone. Anna briefly contemplated just rolling forward into the fjord and swimming after Elsa, though she didn't know how to swim.

A cool touch startled her, and she turned around.

"Aah!"

Wide black eyes looked back at her as she stared. A wooden arm rubbed at her shoulder comfortingly as she took in round snowball feet, the spherical torso studded with coal buttons, the smaller snow chest and the odd, oval head with a single bucktooth and an enormous carrot nose. Over his head a tiny cloud remained, snowing lightly over him.

"Hi Anna, I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!" The snowman inched forward, and when Anna didn't protest, drew her into a firm embrace. "Elsa made me so you wouldn't be sad while she's gone. You'll be okay Anna, you'll be okay."

* * *

AN: Dude, can I just say _thank you _to everyone who has favorited, followed and reviewed this fic? You all are awesome.

And yes, the plot is crawling along really slowly, it should be picking up somewhat over the next few chapters, but not too much, they've still got a fair bit of growing up to do.


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